


clean the kitchen

by watergator



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Child Death, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Blood, No Major Character Death, Vomiting, themes of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2020-07-31 19:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20120806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watergator/pseuds/watergator
Summary: after a tragedy destroys everything he had, dan finds himself living a life far from what he had once expected.everything seems like a huge mess, and all he can do is do his best to clean it up, piece by piece, little by little.





	1. Chapter 1

His coffee is cold. It’s bitter and it’s cold and as soon as it’s made its way down his throat, he’s pulling the mug away from his lips to make a face.

Settling it back down on the kitchen counter is where it’ll stay. Maybe a day. Maybe a few more. Maybe until the milk starts to go funny and he’s forced to do some washing up, but until then he adds it to his collection of mess that scatters around his tiny kitchen in his tiny apartment.

He leaves. Grabbing his coat and stuffing his feet into his shoes he grabs his keys and heads out the door, not even caring to bother to make sure he switched the lights off before he left.The walk to his therapists office isn’t long, and technically it’d be easier to just hop on a train or call for a taxi, but he instead enjoys the half hour walk it takes from his own front door to the sliding glass where a receptionist greets him with a smile and takes his name down, just like every week.

He sits in the same plastic red chair and waits patiently. There’s a dehumidifier plugged into the wall where the blonde woman is sat behind her computer. It jets put little puffs of steam, the contraption is shaped like a lemon in yellow, and he doesn’t even realise the blunt press of his nails in his palm until his name is being called and he’s standing up again.

*

Therapy is boring. It drains him with every soul sucking ability it has on him. He sits on one end of the couch, shrinking away as if he could perhaps disappear into one of the fabric folds and hide away forever.

He supposes that’s a good enough reason to keep coming here; to start becoming a little braver in himself.

She doesn’t ask, his therapist, and it’s strange that he’s always waiting for her to do so. It’s like he’s on the edge of his seat, playing some strange game of bingo, waiting for the moment she opens her mouth, say the words he’s too scared to talk about himself so he can claim his prize.

But it doesn’t work that way. She asks about how he’s doing, what plans he’s made and what he thinks he can improve on. He tells her about the washing up pile in his kitchen and she tells him to start with that.

By the time he’s finished talking about his physical mess and less of the mental mess in his head, it’s time to go.

He thanks her, says goodbye and leaves. He smiles at the receptionist on his way out, and tries not to focus on that stupid lemon shaped machine that’s pulsing out non scented fresher, cleaner air around the room.

*

When he gets home he gets back into bed. He heeds none of the previous spoken wisdom about maybe filling the dishwasher, and he knows he’s doing the worst possible thing right now, but he can’t help but pull back the covers, kick his shoes off and crawl back into smelly, unwashed sheets and curl up underneath them. He shuts his eyes and wills himself to go to sleep. The traffic outside is too loud, normal for midday Wednesday, and the sun is filtering through a crack in his blinds. His stomach is hungry and hurting and he still has the horrid taste of his coffee stuck on his tongue. But nonetheless, his brain switches off and he’s able to sleep.

When he wakes it’s because there’s a buzz against his ass, and it takes him a few moments to pull himself up out his groggy state of sleepiness to realise it’s his phone in his jeans pocket that’s vibrating.

He sits up and grabs at it, staring down at the screen, giving a sigh when he sees the name on the screen.   
  
Despite the tugging in his stomach, he swipes across the screen, accepting the call and presses his warm phone to his ear.   
  
“Mum?” His own voice sounds tired and distant and she’ll surely know he was sleeping before he answered. He’s not even sure what time it is anymore.   
  
“Daniel,” her voice comes calm and bubbly as it always is. It grates on him just so slightly.   
  
“I’m in town later on, I have a meeting with a client and I wanted to know if you wanted to grab a late lunch.”   
  
She’s blunt and forced and it’s more of an order than it is a question. It’s her nature and how he knows her. Growing up she’d deal with scraped knees by blowing on it and telling him he’d live, instead of kisses and cooing. His stomach twists weirdly.   
  
“No,” he tells her, already knowing she’ll argue. He’s not sure why he does it; it’d be easier to let her win, but he supposes he’s always quite enjoyed fighting her. They’re too alike to agree on something straight away.   
  
“I’m thinking Italian. Fancy a pizza?” is all she says back.   
  
Dan sighs and rubs a big hand over his face. His face feels greasy and sweaty.   
  
“Alright,” he says after a beat of silence. “Text me.”   
  
“I will,” she says back, and it sounds like she’s trying to mask her excitement when Dan quickly says goodbye and hangs up before she has the chance to say anything more.   
  
When the line goes dead, he flops on his back and lets out a sigh. He’s still unaware of what time it is, and he looks outside with a tilt of his head to see the sky now gone a weird pinkish yellow.    
  
He frowns.   
  
His room smells. Like sweat, and sadness, it sadness were a possible thing for it to smell of.   
  
His mum does in fact text him, a time and a place and tells him to wear the shirt she got him last christmas.   
  
He can’t remember what bloody shirt it was and he doesn’t care. He does have a quick shower, which feels like such a small win.   
  
He doesn’t bother to dry his hair properly and throws on a fresh pair of jeans that had been hidden in his drawers. A loose t-shirt that he’s sure his mum didn’t buy him.   
  
He’s feeling hungry when he leaves, and makes the walk to the restaurant he’s meeting his mum at.   
  
When he arrives he has a bit of sweat forming under his shirt from where the sun had burned through him. He sees his mum sat at the bar on her phone.    
  
Her blue jeans are rolled up by her ankles, one of which is decorated in little charms, and she looks nothing like a mum her age would normally look.    
  
“Hiya,” he greets her as he approaches her to sit on the stool beside her.    
  
Her face lights up momentarily before she settles for neutral and goes in to hug him, “Hi darling.”   
  
It’s weird and cardboard and they pull away quickly. She smiles at him as she tucks a stray strand of brown hair behind her ear.   
  
“Right,” she claps, “what are we drinking?’   
  
*   
  
Dan doesn’t really drink that much, but he does order a large oregano pizza and a bread bowl for the pair of them. Karen gets a pasta dish, and doesn’t touch the bread, and happily lets Dan pick one after the other, eating away, carb after carb after carb.   
  
She fills the space with conversation about herself; stuff about work and little stories about things in her life that involves the dog or his brother or his nana, but Dan tunes out and focuses his ear on the background noise of the restaurant that bustles around where they’re sat at their table.   
  
He shoves in another bread roll in his mouth as his mum starts talking about how Colin had escaped the lead the other day on one of her large dog walks, when Dan looks up past his mum’s shoulder and notices a mother sat on the table behind her, a toddler in her arms, squirming away with a pink chubby face.   
  
He realises he’s staring when he catches eyes with the mother, who gives him an odd look and settles her child in her lap. He clears his throat and tries to look sorry; it must have looked strange - a grown man staring across the room at a woman and her baby.

But he swallows down the bread in his mouth and feels a kick at his foot from under the table.   
  
He looks at his mum as he pulls apart his crust to pop it in his mouth.   
  
“You’re not listening, are you?” She asks with a quirk of her brows. It’s no way sounding reprimanding, so Dan shrugs, and looks down at his plate.   
  
“How was your day?” She asks. “You had a session today, hm?”   
  
Dan’s insides bubble. He hates that she calls it that. A ‘session’ as if it’s some work out he’s done; something he’s volunteered to.   
  
He looks at her and swallows down his food. “Was shit,” he says loudly. He doesn’t care if the woman and her baby are offended. His mum looks a little taken aback though.   
  
“Dan,” she says softly and leans over a little. Her eyes are kind and worried looking. He hates that. Hates to be the one to make her look like that, even though he has trouble stopping himself.   
  
She says nothing more after that, eating up the rest of her pasta, crossing her knife and fork over and thanking the kind waiter that takes their plates when they’re finished.   
  
“My train leaves soon, I best be going,” she says once they finish their drinks and the sun is getting low.   
  
Dan isn’t sure how he feels, so he walks the short distance to the train station with her, only because she’d told him that walking about was good for his head. He doesn’t tell her he only ever walks places now. He walked here and he’ll walk home.   
  
They’re almost at the station, where people are mingling around, and it makes Dan feel more than ready to head home.   
  
She runs her hands up her arms like she’s cold, but there’s no breeze. She’s just doing something to keep her hands occupied, Dan supposes, and realises he’s done the same where they were shoved in tight jean pockets.   
  
“Text me, yeah?” She asks with a hopeful voice.    
  
Dan huffs a short laugh.   
  
“I do actually quite enjoy your company, your poor old mum.”   
  
Dan looks at her, and genuinely smiles. “Maybe you’re not so bad.”   
  
She smiles back.    
  
“Don’t coop yourself up, Daniel. It’s not good.”   
  
His smile fades fast, and so does hers. 

She opens her mouth, like she wants to say something, but snaps it shut, and Dan has the beginning inklings of where this is headed, like all of his conversations with his mother as of late.

“Maybe... maybe you should try and talk to someone,” she says in a small voice.   
  
The train couldn’t come quicker.   
  
“I am talking to someone,” Dan tells her with a sharp tone. “That’s what I pay for, isn’t it?”   
  
He tries to laugh but it comes out dry and forced. Karen only stares deeply at him. It cuts him ever so slightly.   
  
“Not just a therapist, Dan,” she replies. Her eyes are glossy. “Maybe reach out and talk to  _ him _ .”

Dan looks away at her and towards where the train is coming into sight down the tracks. He looks back at his mum who still has worry etched into each crease of her face.

“Train’s here. I’ll see you later.”   
  
She reaches out, pats his arm like she wants him to maybe stay, but he’s already gone. His feet take him in the direction of home.   
  
The sun is going down and there is a breeze in the air now when he emerges from the underground.   
  
He walks and walks, head down, foot in front of another. If he had the enegry he’d perhaps break into a run.   
  
But he makes it home, fishes his keys out and shoves them in the door. He heads straight for his room, passing his filthy kitchen and chucks his shoes off harshly where they land against the wall with two satisfying thumps.    
  
He crawls into dirty bed sheets, and breathes.

He hears a police siren wail somewhere in the distance, and just as the first tears of the day begin to break free from inside of him, it starts raining.


	2. Chapter 2

He’s up early. He’s up early because the milk in his fridge smells and he’s angry today.    
  
Yesterday he’d rolled around in a mist of sadness and emptiness. Today he’d woken up feeling angry and pissed off like he needed to climb a roof and scream at the top of his lungs.   
  
But he’s not going to do that; the rational part of his brain keeping him on the edge of sane still, and instead he has a black bin bag open and he’s throwing the contents of his fridge away.

  
He ties it off once it’s full and he throws everything in the dishwasher at lightning speed, and once it’s done, he could almost laugh at how easy it all was when yesterday it had felt like it was impossibly hard.   
  
He goes to his room, strips his bed sheets off, pulls the blinds and opens the window. He throws his washing into the machine, heads to the bathroom, showers with the bathroom door opens and listens to his shower soundtrack whilst he scrubs over his body.   
  
Anger washes away and is replaced with something else. He feels like a lucky dip; unsure of what he’ll feel and experience each day.   
  
He gets out the shower, walking around his apartment naked for a little bit, he even laughs at the freedom he has alone here.   
  
And as quickly as it came, the alright feeling vanishes from him and he feels exposed and too lonely. He throws on his sweat pants and a t-shirt from his wardrobe and takes solitude on the couch, only because his bed sheets are still spinning around in the washing machine.

The tv is on but he’s not paying attention, simply letting background noise drift aimlessly around his tiny little home.

  
_ Home _ . It’s an alien words in reference to this apartment.   
  
His phones gives a short buzz where it’s left on the arm of the sofa, and he flips it around to have a look.   
  
It’s Bryony. He turns the phone away again, ignoring her text and ignoring his feelings and feeling anger bubble up in his chest again.   
  
He wants to vent; needs to exercise this feeling out of him like wringing out a dirty dish cloth.   
  
He stares at the tv until his eyes burn, and he hears a child laugh outside where the window is, and he’s springing up off where he’s sat and heading towards his room where his trainers had been left on the floor and decides that they only way he can rid himself of this feeling, is to run.   
  
His chest is swarming with a million angry bees, jabbing at his chest over and over again. So when he’s off on his run, phone left at home and shoes too tight around his toes, he tries to free them from inside of him with huffs of his breath, in and out.   
  
His jog turns into a run which turns into a sprint and he doesn’t care if people stare; he does a lap of the green and passes past people on walks with their dogs and their children and pushes past some people in his path with a rushed and whispered sorry, and he’s suddenly wishing he’d brought his phone to plug his earphones in and hide the sounds of the world away from his head.    
  
A dog barks somewhere and a child screams and Dan runs faster, until his thighs burn and his heart feels like it’s going to explode inside of his chest.   
  
But he can’t stop, not until the anger is gone. It’s still brewing up inside of him like hot water, scalding and burning at him with each step.   
  
His feet hurt and his head is pounding and he’s thinking maybe he could run forever and keep going until he dies, when suddenly he finds himself out of the park and outside a starbucks.   
  
He stops, catching breaths that escape him in heavy huffs, and he bends down to rest his palms on his knees, not caring how fucking strage he must look to the world that exists outside of his head.   
  
Sweat trickles down his face, tickling his skin there, and he goes inside the coffee shop and heads towards the queue of people.   
  
He can’t stop thinking, as if the bees had migrated from his chest to his head, banging their little stingers against his skull repeatedly.   
  
He gets to the front of the line and isn’t even sure what he wants. His brain works on muscle memory, years of ordering the same thing for so long, and before he can say anything, a voice beside him speaks his words for him.   
  
“Caramel macchiato please,” the voice says.   
  
It isn’t so much the coffee order that has Dan spinning on wobbly legs, but the voice. Then, he spots the owner of said voice stood obliviously beside him, stood there head tilted upwards, earphones dangling round his neck as he waits patiently for his drink.   
  
The barista serving - or at least,  _ trying _ to serve Dan, clears her throat, and Dan is forced to face her and open his mouth like a fish.   
  
“Sorry,” he says quickly, and then once the words slip past his lips he spots the figure beside him in his peripheral vision turn quick to face him.   
  
“Coffee,” Dan says quickly. “Black.”   
  
Phil is still looking at him, and Dan is pulling his card out of his pocket, trying to hide the way his hands shake.   
  
“You don’t like your coffee black,” Phil says. A coffee machine whirs excitedly behind the counter. Dan pays, not looking at him and once they payment goes through, he’s forced to look to his right of him, where he scootches over to let the person behind him make their order.   
  
“Yeah,” Dan says quietly, looking down at his trainers. He remembers he probably is as red as a tomato and has sweat dripping down his face, looking a right mess.   
  


It doesn’t matter, they’d both seen worse.

  
Phil says nothing and they simply stand there, waiting for their drinks as the rest of the coffee shop continues on without them. Dan grips his card so hard it dents into the side of his palm.   
  
A woman calls Phil’s name and Phil is grabbing his drink.   
  
He stands there, awkwardly, water drips from his cup and it gets his fingers wet and Dan has to force himself to look back up at Phil’s face. He looks sad.   
  
“Mum was talking about you the other day,” he blurts out.   
  
Dan’s heart lurches in his chest and it comes out in the physical form of a sharp laugh.   
  
“Same,” is all he manages to muster.

More silence.   
  
Phil blinks, and looks down. “I should go.”   
  
Dan nods. “Yeah,” he tries to say, when his own name is being called out.   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
And he’s gone. No “ _ goodbye _ ” or “ _ see you later _ ” or “ _ I hope you’re well. _ ”

Nobody is well and nobody will see anybody later and goodbye’s are far too fucking scary and permanent for his liking. 

He stands in the coffee shop for a little while longer until things in his brain snaps back into place like a rubber band at it’s limit and he leaves.

  
He walks home. Walks home and ignores the rest of the world. Ignores a boy walking his dog with his parents, ignores a sweet old lady that offers him a smile as he passes her by.   
  
He’s angry today. Angry at the world and how it constantly presents itself to him.   
  
He gets home and chucks his coffee in the bin and gets angry at the money wasted and the way cold brown liquid seeps through the bin bag - something he’ll have to clean later.   
  
But anger replaces the logical part of his brain, taking over by taking to hot seat and grabbing the controls and he kicks at his bin that it skids across the small space of his kitchen floor and the coffee and the contents of his fridge from this morning come spilling out, creating a river of grossness across the floor.   
  
He curses, and kicks at it again, his foot throbs inside his shoe but he kicks and kicks and kicks until the small little plastic bin bends and breaks and snaps with a loud crack. He lets out a scream.   
  
It’s not loud or expressive enough, but he’s not going to let an outburst concern nosey neighbours and spend the next half an hour explaining himself to the police when they’re inevitably called.    
  
So anger stays coiled up in his chest digging into his ribs like a really bad cramp.   
  
He stares down at the mess he’d made as he catches his breath.   
  
Old milk and coffee and juice flow into one and a packet of once opened mouldy shredded cheese remains in pepperings across his kitchen.

  
Why hadn’t he eaten that cheese? Is his first thought as he stares down at strands of blue tinted strings. His second thought is that he’s definitely going mad.

He can’t find it in him to tear himself away from the mess. He feels a prickle in the back of his neck where hair stands.

It’s so fucking messy. Everything.   
  
He scoops what he can into a new bag and sets it by the door. He’ll have to go out tomorrow and buy a new bin. He ties it off and washes his hands in the sink. Cold water feels good against his boiling hot skin.   
  
He doesn’t bother to shower. His skin has dried from the sweat and his bed sheets are in the dryer still, waiting.   
  
He doesn't have the mental energy to change them now, so he strips his clothes off until he’s in his pants and heads for his bed. Time has no meaning to him, and although he’s hungry, he’ll sleep until he needs to eat.   
  
He flops onto his bed and lays there, closing his eyes and listening to the world outside his window live their lives normally, and he wonders if that’s what Phil is doing.   
  
Anger washes over his again, but not before exhaustion can beat him to it, and he finds himself slipping into a sleep.   
  
*   
  
He never dreams of her. He remembers in the beginning  _ he _ had however. And Dan didn’t like that - he’d felt left out. His therapist told him that dreams represented our own conscious thoughts a lot and that if you weren’t dreaming about someone then it was possible you were blocking them out in your head in real life.   
  
Dan hadn’t liked that at all.   
  
He dreams about other things instead. He dreams about falling off high ledges and flying through the air in ambulances and being held down in hospital beds, kicking and screaming.   
  
It’s the kind of dreams that he wakes from feeling a swirl of anxiety in his gut.   
  
When he wakes, he’s disappointed. His dream had been black and void of anyone and anything and it feels as if no time has passed at all.   
  
His stomach however, begs to differ, as it growls and cries out. The last time he’d eaten was the pizza with his mum yesterday. He has no food in his fridge and he’s avoiding his kitchen.   
  
He grabs his phone and goes to his takeaway app and makes a quick order for burgers. He’s in some need of some meat with where his head has been at today.   
  
The doorbell soon rings and Dan realises he’s been sat up in bed staring into space for at least half an hour. He grabs his sweatpants and t-shirt and grabs his food. When the door is shut and he’s alone again he’s back in his pants and eating his burger in bed.   
  
He eats it too fast and he’s already stupidly hungry again.   
  
He throws the wrapper on the floor where it lands in a ball beside his shoes, greasy and smelly but he doesn’t care. He wipes the grease from his fingers on his thighs and admires the slick smear it leaves on his already gross skin.

He lays back down again. His bed is his world; he exists purely in here.

A car horn honks outside and his heart jumps in his chest.

He’ll probably have to talk about Phil in his next therapy meeting in five days time. Maybe he will eventually text his mum and let her know he bumped into him in Starbucks.

He’ll let her know that everything was strange and weird and not how he’d imagined.

October is hot and with his window open a moth manages to escape the outside and find its way into his room.

He watches from his bed as it flutters around for a while, before landing on the wall beside the window, inching its way to freedom.

_ So close _ , Dan thinks as he stands and grabs his discarded trainer. He fits it over his hand like a weird glove and slams it against the wall, loudly, and when he drops the shoe the little moth is nothing but a brown stain on his wall, barely even a remains of a creature once living.

He stares at the brown stain on the wall. Maybe it’s not brown, maybe it’s a muddy red colour. Like blood.

His stomach flips inside of him and he’s quick to drop the shoe to the floor and get back into bed.

He closes his eyes and tries not to think of blood coloured stains and loud sirens outside his window.

It doesn’t work.


	3. Chapter 3

He ends up texting Bryony back eventually, mainly because he feels like the walls of his apartment might cave in and suffocate him at any moment, so they arrange to have dinner at her place.

Dan has another quick shower, feeling clean in the mess around him, wears a nice shirt and actually half bothers with his hair.

He’s not sure why, it’s only Bryony, and she’s usually pretty good at seeing past his usual facade of bullshit. But he makes an effort, books a cab only because his legs would fall off trying to walk the other end of London by himself.

When he appears at her door she has a bottle of wine in her hand that’s she’s struggling with.

Her face is scrunched up and she nods for him to come in.

“Get in,” she says as he walks past her, making no effort to help her at all. “I think my chicken is on fucking fire.”

The apartment does have the faint aroma of burning chicken, but Dan keeps his mouth shut and watches her finally pop the cork out of the bottle.

She smiles, pleased with herself.

“Strong arms,” Dan speaks as he watches her grab two wine glasses.

“Strong  _ bitch _ ,” she winks at him as she starts to pour the red liquid into the glasses.

Dan watches it carefully, the red slashes up the glass with a  _ glug, glug _ , and the glass is being passed into his hand.

She takes the first sip, and Dan’s large hand almost wraps around the entire glass.

“I saw Phil yesterday,” he says out of nowhere. 

Bryony chokes, her face goes beet red as sets her glass down and coughs up the remains of spit, air and wine that got trapped in her throat.

“At Starbucks. By accident. I was on a run,” he’s quick to add, looking into his glass.

Bryony leans beside the oven and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Did you say anything to him?” She asks eagerly.

Dan looks up at her, and the small excitement that was evident on her face quickly vanished.

“Bry, it was a quick second.”

He’s not sure why he brought it up when he desperately doesn’t want to talk about it. _ Him.  _ He desperately doesn’t want to talk about  _ him _ .

“I spoke to him last I think a week ago,” Bryony says casually. Dan peers back into his drink to avoid her face.

“My kitchen is a fucking mess,” he tells her.

Bryony takes another sip of her drink. “Need a neat freak like myself to help sort your shit out?” She asks.

Dan looks up at her and actually manages to give a weak laugh. It makes her smile at least.

“It’s okay. I broke my bin.”

She nods and hums. Her drink is already disappearing and Dan doesnt think he really wants his.

“You broke your bin?” She asks, and Dan nods at her.

“Yeah. Had lunch with my mum the other day as well.”

She smiles at him. “I love your mum.”

Dan snorts a laugh, maybe feeling a bit better in his friends company now. He even takes a small mouthful of wine.

It’s bitter.

“She took me out to get pizza,” he tells her.

Bryony is about to say something, but the oven timers sounds off, loud and high and it scares them both.

“No pizzas today,” Bryony says, her head now in the oven. “Just a badly cooked chicken.”

Dan laughs as he watches, smoke billows out around her like a fiery goddess. 

“It’s good enough.”

*

The chicken salad dinner tastes better than it looked or smelt, and Dan scoffs the whole lot down; the first meal in a long time that wasn’t greasy or from a cardboard box.   
  
Bryony digs her fork into a leaf of lettuce and rips it off with her teeth.

Dan sips at his wine.   
  
“I saw a well fit girl at the gym the other day,” she says, unprompted like she’s already practiced some rehearsed lines for when there’s nothing else to say between them.   
  
Dan laughs through his nose. “Why were you at the gym?” he asks.   
  
She smiles. “Told you,” she waves her fork at him from across the table. “Well fit girl.”   
  
Dan snorts and goes back to enjoying his dinner.    
  
“Plus, you were right about exercise actually being like… good at doing shit for your head,” she adds, voice low as she pushes chicken across her plate.   
  
Dan finds himself watching the food on his plate, before he looks up, and she does too.   
  
“It is. Brain chemicals and shit,” he shrugs as he sticks his fork into his food and pops it in his mouth.   
  
Bryony hums, like she’s deep in thought. Dan isn’t sure he trusts that.   
  
“Would you do me a favour?” She asks after a while, and just those words create a squirmy feeling in his gut. He swallows it down for now.   
  
“Depends,” he shrugs again.   
  
“Say yes,” Bryony says first, placing her knife down on her plate. “Come to my group counselling session next week?”   
  
Dan feels the air lungs grow constricted and tight for a second before he remembers how to breathe again.   
  
He looks at her, and her expression looks disappointed.   
  
“I - I can’t,” he tells her, like he’s probably said a thousand times.   
  
“I won’t push you,” is what she says back. She’s looking at him, like proper looking right into his soul. “But I wish you’d come. There’s a couple there, they went through the same thing you and-”   
  
Dan cuts her off by letting his fork go, it clatters against the plate loudly. Her mouth snaps shut.

  
“Can we not talk about this?” He says, his tongue digging into his back tooth to free some chicken there. There’s a beat of silence between them, almost growing awkward, until he says with a quick sigh,

“Wanna watch a movie before I have to go?”   
  
He’s feeling slightly frantic and he knows he probably emits that same energy with the worried look Bryony shoots him from across the table.   
  
But her expression relaxes, into something more comfortable. The lines are still etched between her brows though, like they’ll maybe never disappear from her face.   
  
“Sure,” she says in a quiet voice as she stands. “Let me wash up first.”   
  
Dan takes his plate and dumps it in the sink. He notices his hands are already shaky.   
  
“Fuck the washing up,” he says as he turns to her. “Just - just please?”   
  
She nods. Thank god, she nods.   
  
*   
  
When Dan gets home he feels weird all over. He’s still shaky and he feels tired. He’s always tired as if his mental charger is snapped and he can only get to about 10% and that’s it.   
  
He kicks his shoes off, they bounce off the wall again, and he walks past the kitchen, straight to his room again.   
  


The dead moth splatter is still stained on his wall.    
  
He feels so fucking lonely.

He strips himself down into his pants, and gets into bed. His bedsheets are still sat in the dryer and they probably need another wash from how long they’d been sat in the machine.

He does what he does every day when the sun is still mid way in the sky and there’s nothing else to do but sleep - and he closes his eyes and wishes for a dream to come to him. He wants to see things, see certain things in a world that doesn’t feel so boxed in and grey.   
  
He wants to laugh again and feel it rumble in his chest and tummy and wants to remember how the sun feels on his skin when its wanted.   
  
He wants to remember what it feels like to fall asleep in a bed that have washed sheets, with another person, and to not have to worry about the mess that’s building in his kitchen again.   
  
He wants to live his life with no mess at all.   
  
And it’s all he can do: want.

*   
  
When he wakes up, it’s because there’s a knocking at his front door. It takes him a moment to gather his bearings in his sleepy haze, and a quick glimpse out of the window confirms that he slept the whole night and most of the morning.   
  
No dreams. Just chaos.   
  
He gets up, slings on the same sweatpants that are starting to smell a bit, the same old shirt and heads for the door.   
  
The last person he’s expecting for it to be on the other side is his grandmother.   
  
He voices his surprise when she smiles at him.   
  
“Nana.”   
  
“Daniel,” she says with a grin, almost as if she knows what she’s doing, and pushes past him, not giving him much time.   
  
“What’re you doing here?” he asks. He’s still groggy and feeling strange. She stands in the middle of his untouched living room and looks around before her eyes land on him.   
  
“I was meeting an old friend this morning, thought I’d pop by and say hello.”   
  
His first suspicion is that his mother probably set him up for this, like he’s some stupid child that can’t be trusted on his own. He’s managed it - for almost a year now. He’s seemingly managed fine.

  
“Your mum said you never texted her the other day,” she adds, and it only helps grow to his conspiracy.

  
“Right,” Dan hums. He feels awkward standing here in just his pjs, unsure of what to say or do.

  
“You look terrible,” she says bluntly.   
  
Dan has to laugh, or he may as well cry.   
  
“Cheers,” he huffs out, trying to add a laugh that just won’t catch onto his voice.

“Your apartment looks terrible, Dan,” she says, sounding a bit more stern now, on the edge of real concern. Maybe he is a stupid child that can’t be trusted on his own.   
  
“I brought you some rock cakes,” she says suddenly, and reaches into her bag and pulls out a tupperware box that does in fact look full to the top with his nana’s homemade rock cakes.   
  
He could well and truly, genuinely almost cry.   
  
“I can put them in the kitchen if you want,” she offers, taking the first step, but Dan stops her, walking towards her and taking the box from her hand.   
  
“No,” he says quickly, then he looks away at his bare feet. “The kitchen’s a mess.”   
  
He looks up and his nana is looking up at him, like she always has done ever since he had his growth spurt when he was fourteen, and there’s that gleam in her eyes.   
  
“Best we have a tidy up then, hm?”   
  
*

Nana takes care of the kitchen whilst Dan re-washes and dries his bedsheets. He finally manages to take them out of the wash this time to put them on his bed. He opens the window to let in some fresh air and gets a wet cloth to clean up the brown moth stain on his wall before his nana sees and tells him off about it.   
  
When he comes back, the kitchen is tidy and clean and looks like a mess had never once been spilled here.   
  
She looks pleased with herself, and takes a step back to smile at him as they appreciate the good scrubbing the kitchen has had.   
  
“Tea?” She smiles.   
  
Dan nods.   
  
*

They make the tea and have rock cakes in the living room. Dan can’t remember the last time he’s had one of his nana’s treats, or made himself a good warm drink that didn’t taste like dirt in his mouth, but this feels magical.   
  
Maybe it’s his nana; maybe she hoards some kind of special witchcraft within her.

“What have you been up to lately then?” She asks from her end of the couch.   
  
Dan takes a bite of his cake and crumbs go cascading down his front. He brushes them off onto the floor, uncaring.   
  
“Not much, saw Bryony last night, had dinner.”   
  
He misses out the part about Phil, mainly because it’s too exhausting for him. He’s saving up that kind of mental energy for his therapist soon.   
  
His nana smiles sweetly at him, like it’s something she’d been wanting for him to say.   
  
“Oh lovely!” she exclaims. “How is she doing?”

She asks because she’s being polite; his nana could probably count on her fingers the amount she’s ever met Bryony, the last time being-

“Daniel?”

His nanas voice rips him from the thoughts with a blink. He looks up to see her slightly concerned face

“Yeah, no, she’s - she’s doing okay,” he says quickly, words uselessly tumbling from his mouth. 

“She, um, she asked me to go to group therapy next week,” he adds, and he’s not entirely sure why, because his nana looks hopeful.

But before she can say anything, he’s quick to butt in.

“I said no though. I already have…” He trails off, waving a wrist around as if the words may appear out of thin air for him instead. They don’t.

Nana purses her lips and sets her mug down and shuffles forwards.

“Maybe it’d be good for you,” she tries, but Dan just tiredly runs a hand down his face and blows out a puff of air.

“Maybe she’s just seeking some kind of support,” she adds, ignoring his huffs. “It’d be good for you all.”

He looks up at her, his hand falls away from his face to land in his lap. He’s tired. Well and truly tired.

His nana seems to understand that, as her face falls and goes soft. She does her best to smile.

“You’re tired, love.”

He hums, tilting his head back against his sofa and looking up at the ceiling. His eyes burn with the threat of tears.

“I better be off. The cakes are all yours, just make sure you wash the box before I come and get it next week.”

He hums again, not bothering to even look up now, and he can hear her stand and take their mugs to the kitchen. She leaves them on the side by the sink.

“I love you,” she says once she’s in the room again. “Take care of yourself. And remember to clean the kitchen.”

He hums once more, closing his eyes to try and starve off his incoming headache he can feel blossoming.

“Good lad.”

Dan could almost cry. He wants to reach out to her and curl up on her lap like he did when he was little and upset. And then, she’s gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Dan decides to go to the group therapy. He changes his mind at breakfast (which is the very last of his nana’s rock cakes), then changes his mind again in the shower and then realises he hasn’t got much choice as he pulls up his jeans and throws on a shirt.   
  
When he’s walking down the street following his google maps path with his head down, he knows he well and truly committed to this now - unless he takes a right and goes in a circle back home.   
  
But he keeps going towards where he thinks he knows where Bryony’s session is, and once he reaches the civic hall he takes a deep breath.   
  
His palms are sweaty where he’d been clutching at his phone so tightly as if were some lifesaver ring to keep him afloat.    
  
And now as he stands at the big wooden doors, he slips it into his back pocket and braces himself.   
  
There’s a ring of people. All sat in the middle of the small hall that smells like old and damp and reminds him of his childhood when his nana used to force him to take part in his town fundraiser charity.   
  
But he doesn’t have much time to dwell on the deepest memories of his childhood, because a pink head is turning towards him and she smiles.   
  
Dan smiles back.   
  
She looks genuinely surprised as he walks over, it seems as if the session hadn’t started just yet and he’s not shocked that she looks a bit bewildered as to why he was here; last time they’d spoken he’d given her a strong no. And now, defying his own words and actions, here he was.   
  
“Hi,” she says, standing up to greet him. The rest of the room that’s starting to fill the cult-like circle of plastic chairs.   
  
“Hey,” he says back.   
  
Bryony frowns, opening her mouth like she wants to say something, but she’s stopped short when the door behind him creaks open and she’s quick to glance over her shoulder.   
  
Dan follows her gaze, craning his neck, and his stomach immediately drops.   
  
Phil catches eye contact with him, and looks exactly how Dan feels on the inside right now.   
  
He spins back round to look at Bryony, who has a sad look on her face.   
  
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she whispers, sounding genuinely sorry. “That’s why I invited him instead.”   
  
Dan hasn’t any time to process what’s been said and what’s happening because Phil suddenly appears next to him. Shoulder to shoulder almost, so Dan takes a small side step away from him.   
  
“Hi,” Phil says in a quiet voice, looking at Bryony, then, with much struggle, at Dan.   
  
“Hey,” Bryony and Dan say in unison back.   
  
He could leave now, Dan thinks, as the three of them stand in complete silence. It’s completely logical - all he’d have to do is pretend his phone is ringing, excuse himself and then leave and make the scary walk home.   
  
The only thing stopping him, as good of a plan that it is, is that Phil knows him far too well to ever fool for it. Bryony too. But he’s okay with making a fool of himself in front of her.   
  
Phil is another story.   
  
He misses his window of opportunity to think of another plan that doesn’t involve just bolting out of the door, because soon somebody from another back room appears, that must be the counsellor because everyone takes their seats. Bryony sits in between them both and Dan is thankful for it, whether it be intentional or not.   
  
Once the sound of scraping of chairs beings to quiet down, the man at the front of the room stands up and smiles warmly at them all.   
  
“Hello,” he starts, and his voice is deep. Dan guesses he must be in his forties from the way his hair is balding and wrinkles settle deep in his skin.   
  
“My name is Mike,” he speaks with a soft and clear voice. “And I’m very glad you all decided to attend today. Some of you I know,” he says looking around and giving a few people knowing nods and smiles - Bryony falls under the list.   
  
“And some are new here, so welcome.”

Mike happens to look at Dan, who quickly shrinks in his seat to avoid his eye contact. Mike, who must either sense this or have mind reading powers, understands this and quickly moves on.

But just before Dan thinks he’s safe from any spotlight, Mike is announcing that because of the handful of newcomers they have today, an introduction is in order.   
  
The door is just there, yet his legs won’t fucking move.   
  
“So we’ll go around in the circle, everyone can stand up and say their name,” Mike speaks to the room, clasping his hands together. “You can say as much or as little about yourself as you’d like,” he adds with a nod.

It starts off on the other side of the circle, much to Dan’s relief and a few people stand up and say their names. Some people simply state who they are and sit back down. Others give a bit of background information on who they are and why they might be here.   
  
The circle of people comes round like a wave, standing up and sitting, all earning a deep thought hum from Mike who seems to be paying a lot of attention.   
  
Then, it gets to Phil. Dan keeps his head down, trained at his shoes.   
  
“Uh, my name’s Phil,” he starts. When Dan looks up to look at him, he notices he has his hands weirdly bent inside of his pockets and he can’t find the power within him to look away from them.   
  
Dan doesn’t expect him to say much after that, to maybe just sit back down in his little plastic chair. But he’s proven wrong.   
  
“I didn’t want to come today. But my therapist said that group counselling was good for connecting to other people,” he says and now he’s solely looking and talking to Mike, who’s nodding in agreement.

Dan hangs onto his every word, wanting maybe just a tiny bit more, but Phil gives a tight lipped smile and sits back down.

Dan feels a cocktail of emotions stir up inside him and he’s not entirely sure why.

Bryony is next; she’s confident and smiley and she simply says her name and sits back down.

As soon as she has, Dan realises it’s his turn. He looks to Mike, who’s giving him an encouraging smile.

Dan stands, legs feeling they may buckle underneath him. The room feels stretched and too big and there’s far too many eyes on him.

He glances to Bryony beside him as he takes in a shuddery breath, and her hand comes up to brush quickly by this thigh in some sort of comfort.

It doesn’t work a whole lot, and he finds himself looking at Phil.

Phil is looking back at him.

“My name is Dan,” he speaks, clearing his throat.

Mike says a quiet hello back and Dan knows he can sit back down and not say another word ever again to these people and not come back again.

But his heart is pounding in his chest as he stares at Phil with such fiery intensity like the rest of the world could fade away at the edges the harder he stares.

“And -“ he pauses to swallow the thick lump that’s forced its way into his throat. He’s poised.

“And I’m here because my daughter died.”

Once he sits back down he can finally look away. His eyes are prickling and he’s not sure if it’s because of Phil, or the intense staring match he’s just endured or  _ other things _ , but he comes back down to earth and feels Bryony's hand find his on his lap, and she wraps it up in a warm squeeze, not letting go until Dan begins to pull away.

Dan focuses his attention on listening to Mike, who’s giving a breakdown about how they’ll interact and talk and what extra help they can get.

He feels Phil’s eyes burn into the side of his head the entire time.

*

He doesn’t bother saying goodbye to anyone. He mutters something quick to Bryony, whom he promises to text later on (he won’t, he just knows he won’t) and pushes past Phil with quick steps and steps out onto the street.

It feels good to breathe, despite the coil in his chest that’s starting to press tighter and tighter.

He walks briskly towards home. Not that it’s a home, not that it’s a place he feels happy or loved; it’s just an expensive box for him to piss, eat and sleep in.

Not that he does much of the two latter of those things.

When he gets through the door he kicks it shut and lets out a gasp. How has it felt like he’s been holding his breath this whole time, when he feels like he’s constantly clawing for air?

He takes his shoes off, throwing them at the wall again. Angry, frustrated tears escape him and he’s sliding down the wall when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He won’t bother, already second guessing the apology Bryony is probably texting him.

He can’t deal with that right now. He doesn’t care, because what is done is done.

He cries, snot and tears make a mess of his face and he’s sure he’s gone all red and blotchy as usual.

He’s hungry and tired and sad and alone and so fucking annoyed all at once.

He feels sick to his stomach.

He stays on the floor for a little bit, catching his breath and letting the last of his tears dry him up from the inside, and when he pulls himself up it’s on shaky, bambi-like legs.

He makes his way to the kitchen with a heavy heart and grabs a glass from the cupboard. It’s a mess again, it always is. His nana’s box remains in the sink, unwashed. He wishes he could care, maybe kick himself into doing it, but he can’t.

Every fibre of his body pulls him back and holds him down.

He turns the tap on and fills the water, it spills over a couple of times before he brings it to his lips and gulps it all down. He does the same, three or four times over before he feels too full and sets his glass down.

He wipes his nose with the back of his hand, and takes a deep breath, gripping the edge of the counter to steady himself.

He closes his eyes and tries to calm himself.

But when he opens them, he’s no longer in his dirty, little kitchen.

He’s in a large country styled kitchen, half the mess scattered around it.

His heart picks up its pace against his ribs and he can’t breathe again. He squeezes his eyes shut and begs to leave this place. He manages to pull through just as he hears the familiar sounds of laughter float into his head.

He wants to scream, to let it rip out of him once and for all like a bad root, but instead his stomach churns and he’s fumbling forwards, ducking his head into the sink and retching.

Vomit burns his throat and the taste and smell only makes him gag again. Only bile comes out now, with the sad remains of his nana’s rock cakes, smooshed grossly into his sink.   
  
A shaky hand comes up to wipe at his mouth and he instantly grimaces at the way he feels spit, bile and chunky bits on his skin.   
  
He pulls himself away from the sink, runs the tap and sticks his face under it as much as he can, washing away the mess.

When he comes back up for air, the mess is still there, surrounding him.   
  
He strips his clothes off on his way to his room, leaving a trail of mess behind him in the hallway as a reminder to himself.   
  
He flops face first into his bed and squeezes his eyes shut, hoping that maybe he’ll drown himself in his own pillow. A few seconds later, he has to roll back over because he genuinely can’t breath, and as much as he’d enjoy that feeling, right now the logical part of his brain is taking the wheel and stopping him from doing that.   
  
He stares up at the ceiling, and it’s a watercolor blur of off-white and greys from where the tears in his eyes pool, unfallen as of yet. He doesn’t even have to blink, and they’re already rolling from how heavy they sit in his eyes.   
  
Everything hurts. Everything is painful on the inside and outside and it’s almost as if a train conductor is signalling for a big train to run him down, as well as a tiny one inside his brain.   
  
He wants to close his eyes and sleep again, but he knows deep down that sleeping doesn’t do the trick like it used to do; it no longer serves as an illusion that everything is better. It only leaves him empty and alone during those few hours he manages to steal every now and then.   
  
Instead he sits up and sniffs. Snot is wiped over his face and he’s sure he’s a fucking mess. He always is. He gets up off his bed on wobbly legs and tries to stand, feeling like some kind of fucked up version of bambi as he makes his way out of the room. He needs water to soothe the thumping inside his skull.   
  
His brain feels swollen and painful and his muscles and his bones ache.   
  
He’s halfway to the kitchen when the thumping in his head becomes real.   
  
He stops, and stares at his door.   
  
It’s quiet for a moment as if nothing had ever existed, and before Dan can turn around again, there’s another, gentle knock.   
  
“Hello?” He calls out. His voice sounds raw and sad.   
  
“Dan, it’s me.”   
  
Phil’s voice is muffled from behind the door and Dan’s stomach does a backflip from inside of him. He’s not sure why Phil is here, not sure he wants him here.    
  
He stares at the door, as if it could give him any kind of answers.   
  
“What do you want?” he asks, although, there are a thousand different things he could say; a thousand different things he wants to say, but can’t, because some things aren’t meant for a conversation between wood.   
  
“I just-” Phil starts and stops, and Dan can practically see the way he’s pushing his hand through his quiff now. It’s like a film inside his head.   
  
“I don’t know,” Phil says quietly, Dan almost misses it. “I just wanted to make sure- you, you seemed-” he’s stumbling and stuttering over his words, just as clumsily he is in real life.   
  
There’s a long, deep sigh and a thunk on the door, most likely Phil’s head.    
  
Dan says nothing still.   
  
“I’m sorry for today,” Phil speaks after some time. “I didn’t know you’d be there. Bryony didn’t either.”   
  
He genuinely sounds sorry.    
  
Dan licks at his chapped lips, trying to find the words to say.   
  
“I know,” is what he ends up saying. “I know that. It’s okay.”   
  
He’s still standing in the long hallway in his pants staring at his door. All he’d have to do is walk maybe three steps forward, pull the chain off the door and open it and he could make the first step in the hardest direction that’s he’s so afraid of taking.   
  
But he doesn’t. And it seems like Phil already knows that.   
  
“I’m gonna go now,” he tells him. His voice sound more far away than it did - Dan can’t be sure.   
  
He’s not sure what to say, so he stays quiet.   
  
“I’m sorry again for today.”   
  
“Don’t be,” Dan finds himself saying quickly. There’s a beat of silence. “Don’t be sorry.”   
  
Another pause.   
  
“Okay.”   
  
Then, there’s silence.   
  
Dan can’t move from his spot on the floor and continues his hard stare at the door. Was Phil even there? He thinks to himself. A figment of his imagination, possibly. He’s not so sure anymore.

The dryness of his mouth is what gets him moving and he grabs his water and heads back to bed. He can still Phil’s voice in his head behind it’s own manifestation of a symbolic door.   
  
He drifts off to sleep with that voice, much like he’s done a million times before; it’s what makes it a peaceful night for once.


	5. Chapter 5

He unloads every pent up emotion and every spill and drop to his therapist a few days later. He cries and gets angry and she listens and makes notes.   
  
He swears and laughs at himself and feels purely manic. He even asks if he should be worried. His therapist taps her chin with her pen and tries to make him explain what he means by that.   
  
He doesn’t, mainly because he doesn’t think he knows he can, and instead talks about group therapy and Bryony and Phil and his nana and tells her how much he really fucking hates them all right now.   
  
She reminds him that he doesn’t really hate them, and that grief pushes people away. He cries into his cushion and tells her that it makes him lonely. She knows. She can tell, just like everyone else.   
  
“I think group therapy is a good idea,” she tells him once he’s stopped full on crying. “It’s good to connect with other people who may be going through a similar thing that you’re experiencing.”   
  
His mind instantly goes straight to Phil, and how stupid he’d looked on that stupid plastic chair.   
  
He digs his fingernails into his palms until she asks him to stop.   
  
“How much progress do you think you’ve made,” she asks, looking over her glasses at him. “With Phil and anybody else in your life.”   
  
Dan tears his eyes away from her and stares at the carpet at her feet.   
  
“Say you had to give it a percentage for each person in your life, how much would that be?”

Dan looks back up at her and gives a long, drawn out sigh.   
  
“I dunno. My nana is at like a sixty, and that’s because she forces me into things.”    
  
She writes something down and Dan keeps talking.   
  
“My mum and Bryony are…” he stops to have a proper think. He comes to a conclusion. “Maybe forty. They don’t talk to me about it because - well, I don’t know why.”   
  
He can’t really remember when in the last year they’d brought it up to him, other than asking if he’d spoken to Phil. It seems weird when saying it out loud. His mother never seemed to properly grieve for her dead granddaughter and Bryony was good at pretending nothing had even happened.   
  
Maybe they all dealt with loss in their own ways.   
  
“People process losing a loved one in their own ways sometimes,” the therapist says, reading his mind easily. “You grieve in a way they may not understand and they may grieve in a way you don’t fully understand.”   
  
It’s all words Dan understands, he feels stupid that he has to actually pay what little money he has to listen to this. Still, he sits back on the couch, hugging the cushion close to his stomach like it’s the next best thing to a hug.   
  
“That’s why communication is important,” she says softly. “What you and your family went through was very traumatic.”   
  
He feels his insides twist up.    
  
“A death in the family is always hard to cope with; an unexpected death is sometimes harder because of how hard it can knock you off your feet.”   
  
Dan wants to scream at her and maybe shake her until some sense falls into that big head of hers. He knows that. He of course fucking knows that. It’s the whole reason he and everybody else is in this fucking mess; it’d all happened so fast and so quick and he’d been dunked under cold water before he’d had a chance to take a breath, which was why he was drowning now with water in his lungs like it was choking him.   
  
“The group therapy is a good idea. Go. Your friend needs your support as much as you need hers.” She pauses to look at him carefully, and Dan shifts under her gaze.   
  
“Phil too,” she adds.   
  
*

The walk home is long. He takes steady steps as he lets the thoughts inside his head buzz and burn and plague him like a disease.   
  
He makes a quick stop into Starbucks for a late breakfast. He hasn’t eaten properly in a few days and as much as he enjoys sometimes torturing himself, he can’t help the feeling he gets in his tummy as he smells the sweet scent of hot chocolate and biscuits.

Which is how he ends up ordering his food and drink and sitting away at the back of the shop, watching people come in and out.   
  
A couple come through the door, make out in the line and pull away with flustered giggles and blushy cheeks when they get to the front and have to order their food.   
  
A teenagers comes in after them with his earphones pushed into his ears and his eyes glued to his phone.    
  
A dad pushing a buggy strolls in a little while afterwards, with a toddler perched happily at the front and a slightly older child is hanging off of it, begging her father for a pumpkin shaped cookie that Dan had seen earlier up front.   
  
His heart wrenches as he watches the dad give in and order both his children their snacks. The girl triumphs and hugs at her dad’s leg and is impatient once the barista has handed it over and she’s already taking as big of a bite as she can with baby teeth.   
  
He watches until his vision goes blurry and soon enough, once the dad is happily grabbing his coffee, the small family leaves.   
  
It leaves an empty feeling in his chest. He knocks back the rest of his hot chocolate where it’d gone a little cold with passing time, wipes at his mouth and stands, hearing the faint sounds of the girls laughter still echoing around the room.   
  
*   
  
The cemetery is cold and empty. It’s still early, but Dan like it this way. The metal gate creaks open and his feet take him to where he needs to be.   


When he’s here, he doesn’t allow himself to think about Phil or family or people that make him feel sad. He’s here for one person only.   
  
He gets to her plot; it’s perfectly neat and beautiful as usual.

He sits on the grass and arranges a few of the ornaments that had been knocked down in the sad London weather.

He stares at the square plague that holds her name, her birthday and the other date.   
  
Dan doesn’t like to think about it too much; doesn’t like to dwell on the fact that the same date is rolling around far too quickly for him to like. A whole year around the sun.   
  
He reaches a hand out and touches at a flower, it’s silky petals grazes his finger and it feels just like baby skin. He feels choked.   
  
“I’m sorry,” he whispers to no one.    
  
He leaves a little while later.

*

Trauma, as Dan understands it, works in a billion different instances. Sometimes it’s making you cry yourself to sleep, sometimes it’s leaving you empty and alone and sometimes it’s spending the rest of your day rifling through silly memories in physical forms instead of the real adult responsibilities you have.   
  
Which is how he finds himself in this predicament. He’s sat on his living room floor, the coffee table has been wonkily pushed aside to make way for the suitcase he has opened up, all full of little photos and trinkets.   
  
A few birthday cards saved, a pasta necklace painted in sloppy rainbow, a polaroid that’s sadly creased in the middle.   
  
His fingers run over each item in the case, like he can conjure some kind of magic and turn these memories back into life again. He stops at a photo of the three of them, Dan on one side and Phil on the other, squishing her between. She couldn’t be much older than four years old in the photo. Dan can’t even remember how close this photo was taken before she’d died.   
  
He flips it upside down so he no longer has to think about it.   
  
There’s a few fathers day cards; the older ones are scribbled in their own handwriting, when their daughter wouldn’t have been able to hold a card.   
  
Then, the last ones appear and Dan feels his eyes grow wet. He flips on open. It’s addressed to just Phil.   
  
He can’t remember if they ever did separate father’s day; but this year, she must have insisted on two cards. Two cards for twice as much love.   
  
Her handwriting is terrible and Dan can barely make out what it says. It’s addressed to her papa, something unintelligible in the middle and then her name signed at the bottom with a row of kisses and upside down hearts.   
  
He closes it and holds it to his chest. His own card sits in the case and he plucks it up. He opens it carefully and reads it as best he can.   
  
He blinks and a few tears come rolling down his face. He doesn’t bother wiping them away; it feels like a good cry today. Maybe the best cry he’s had in a while.   
  
He’s still holding close onto Phil’s card. He feels bad that he has it - they had a good share of what little possessions she’d had.   
  
Any useless stuffed animals that hadn’t held any emotional value, along with clothes had been given away to charity. They had a few of her coats and baby grows and little shoes that they’d decided to keep. But other than that, there’s not much left.

His phone is on the sofa behind him. He grabs for it on instinct, pressing his thumb against the button and quickly heading towards his messages.   
  
He’s not sure what the fuck he’s doing, but today is a nostalgic kind of sad. Grief has made its decision today, and today Dan was going to feel immersed in his daughters belongings, and cry over painted macaroni.   
  
He finds Phil’s number and opens up a new text thread.   
  
_ ‘hey, i found a few things that are yours that i have? do you want to pick them up?’ _

He hits send without thinking.

He sets his phone down, and digs back through his case of memories.

He’s sorting through a stack of photos, unsure of how much time had passed, but soon, there’s a knock at his door that makes his jump.

He’s not sure why, but he checks his phone that had been left on the floor, screen down.

He’s greeted by a forgotten text from over half an hour ago. He must have missed it.

_ ‘sure. i can come over in 20?’ _

It’s too late to back out now, because it’s seems like Phil’s quite literally at his door, so he grabs the card, stumbles to his feet and heads towards the door.

He grabs at the handle and it rattles in his hold. He wastes no time, like ripping off a plaster.

Phil’s standing there. He’s not sure why he’s shocked; Dan had obviously been expecting it, but it still knocks the wind out of his lungs.

Phil pushes his glasses up his nose with a thin smile.

He looks tired.

“Do you wanna come in?” Dan asks. He’s still holding onto the paper card that Phil’s either ignored or just not noticed yet.

Phil cranes his neck over Dan’s shoulder, not very subtly, taking an obvious peek into his apartment; Dan can’t even remember the last time Phil had come over. Maybe when he’d first moved in, and Phil had dropped some boxes over. A weird mirror image of this right now.

He looks back at Dan, and gives him the same thin lipped, tight smile that Dan knows is just him trying to be polite.

“Uh, I shouldn’t really,” he says, and Dan can’t tell if he’s honestly good at sounding disappointed or if he actually is.

“I’m meeting Martyn and Corn for dinner tonight,” he tells him, shoving his hands into his pockets. Dan glances down to check if they still to the weird thing he does.

They do.

“Was it a lot of stuff or…” Phil trails off, and it drags Dan painfully back to the moment in front of him. He blinks, before opening and closing his mouth like a fish.

“Oh,“ he says, before glancing down at his own hands. Phil seems to follow, even when Dan looks back up again.

“Just this,” Dan hands him the card.

Phil takes it gingerly and runs his fingers over it.

“I’m sure there’s… there’s other stuff,” Dan speaks, his voice suddenly sounding a little hoarse. “But if I find anything I can always let you know. Drop it over or whatever.”

Phil is quick to look back up at him, and it doesn’t take Dan long to notice the glossy look in his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says before quickly clearing his throat. “Yeah, thanks, that’d be- that’d be great. I’ll have to text you my address.”

Dan swallows hard. “Yeah. Okay.”

They stand in silence for a little while longer, until Phil is looking down at the card again and Dan’s doing the same. The last time Phil had probably read that card, things had been so much more different.

Dan gives a weak cough that makes Phil look at him again.

“Right, well, I better go,” Phil says, flapping the card over his shoulder in gesture.

Dan nods as he leans himself up against the door. “Yeah,” he replies. “Enjoy your dinner with Martyn and Cornelia.”

Phil’s face softens. He smiles at him, pausing like he’s taking it in for a moment.

“I’ll tell them you said hi?”

Dan observes him, standing in apartment block hall, the silly card in his hand still, where he still holds that ever-so awkward pose that radiates through his body. 

Dan nods, and swallows again. “Sure.”

Phil nods, ducks his head, turns around and he’s gone.

When Dan shuts the door he rests his head against it, his curls fall into his eyes, and he lets himself finally breathe.


	6. Chapter 6

He tells Bryony about it all. He’s meeting her for breakfast when he tells her about Phil and the card as she shovels in her scrambled eggs.

“So… the group counselling thing… wasn’t an entire flop?” She asks cautiously as her tongue runs along her lip to catch the ketchup missed there.

Dan shrugs, and pushes his vegan sausage across his plate; he’s trying to be really good right now, even though he feels the total opposite.

“I dunno,” he shrugs again. “I act on impulse, you know that,” he tells her as he looks back up.

She’s staring at him softly now, a fond expression painted on down turned lips and worried eyes.

“Are you maybe a bit lonely?” She asks quietly.

Dan scoffs a laugh that feels far too loud for the quiet cafe they’re situated in.

He ducks his head back down to stare at his uneaten food.

“I mean, yeah,” he says, “but I latch onto people I know will deal with me because it’s like some sort of security blanket.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Like Phil.”

It’s less of a question and more of a statement, but Dan nods anyway.

“I get vulnerable, feel insecure, do or say something stupid then inevitably regret it,” he looks back up at her to give her a dead look, trying his best to edge on funny.

She doesn’t find it all too humorous.

“Then come back to group with me next week,” she offers her hand out to tap at his in the middle of the table. He thinks about pulling away but her palm is so warm, he stays where he is.

“I can ask Phil not to come but-“ She stops, and it doesn’t sound like she’s really sure of what to say next.

And it seems Dan’s right, because she says nothing more.

“Everything is fucked, Bry,” he sighs heavily, pulling his hand away to press it against his own face.

He hears her tut, “I know it is.”

More silence, aside from the clanging of the kitchen behind them. Someone yells, a forgein word that both makes them jump. They laugh afterwards.

“Are you meeting him again?” Bryony asks as she sticks her knife into her sausage. “To give him the stuff?”

Dan stares back down at his plate again. He lets go of his fork and presses the heel of hand into his eyes until shapes begin to appear behind his eyelids.

“Hey,” Bryony says softly. It pulls his hands away from his hands and he has to blink a couple of times to see her across the table properly.

“You always have a choice,” she tells him. 

He sighs. 

She’s right. She’s always bloody right.

He picks up his fork and starts eating again, even though it feels like chewing on rubber.

*

Once he gets home, he falls asleep on the sofa. It’s warm in here and the tv is playing softly and he’s quick to fall victim to a fuzzy nap.

The suitcase has been packed away; one mess he can’t afford to lose right now. He keeps it safe under his bed where it’ll remain out of sight, out of mind.

His eyes grow tired and he’s falling.

_ He dreams in blurs, like somebody poured water over the picture and it no longer holds the clarity it once did his brain. _

_ He dreams about smears of red and drowned out shouts and screams. A flash or blue and a loud thumping. He hears the same banging sound over and over again, heavy crashing followed by a grunt. He dreams about running, except he’s knee deep in thick sludge and he can’t move. _

_ There’s a wobbly corridor and a figure in white stands at the end. He hears a baby cry; his baby’s cry, and he’s so desperate to move. _

_ He can hear the woman’s voice but it’s muffled like it’s deep underwater. _

_ Suddenly he’s cold and alone and the voice in his ear is clear now: _

_ “I’m sorry,” the voice hisses, like a snake. “We did everything we could.” _

_ She washes away and blood red watercolour runs over his vision. He tries to scream but his voice disappears from inside of him and the air is being pulled from his lungs. _

_ He collapses onto the floor with a splash, and when the lights come back on, he realises he’s drowning. He’s drowning in blood. _

_ He’s gurgling and struggling to breathe and he’s gasping for air, and over his panic and struggle, he can hear the faint echo of Phil’s voice come from somewhere. _

_ He reaches a hand out and mutters his name. Nobody comes though. _

_ “We need to clean this up,” Phil’s shaky voice tells him. He can’t see, breathe or think when he’s surrounded in blood. He doesn’t know how. _

_ “I can’t,” he whispers.  _

_ Then, the blood is gone, and he’s left on the floor of the black void and he’s cold and wet.  _

_ He can hear the far away sound of a heart monitor, along with slow footsteps. _

_ Phil steps out of the shadows, dressed in a black suit. _

_ Blood tracks down his cheeks from his eyes as if he’d been crying. _

_ He has a frown plastered on his face; he looks hurt. _

_ Dan knows how hurt he’s feeling. He tries to reach out but Dan can’t move. _

_ “You can’t clean this mess?” Phil asks, except its not entirely his voice. _

_ Dan sobs. “I don’t know how,” he cries. _

_ Phil begins to wash away. Dan is desperate for him to stay. _

_ “Then don’t,” Phil is cold. “Don’t fix anything. I’ll do it by myself.” _

_ And then he’s gone, and Dan is left alone. _

When Dan wakes, he realises he’s half screaming, as if the cries in his dream have followed him here. He’s shaking and his heart is pounding so hard he’s afraid it’ll bruise.

His dream digs its claws into his consciousness and refuses to let go. His stomach rolls at the sensation and he’s just about pushing himself off the sofa to throw up over himself and the floor.

Spit and bile hangs from his lip as he lets out a sob. Tears and snot make their way down his face and he wipes it away with a shaky hand.

He gets up on shaky legs, and realises he’s trembling all over, as well as feeling soaked through.

The dampness on his back and under his arms and on the back of his knees are hot sweat.

He whimpers like a puppy caught red handed, and a wave of shame comes crashing down on him and he stumbles to the kitchen.

He can clean this mess, he thinks as he reaches the underneath cupboard below the sink and starts to look for something to quickly clean up with.

He doesn’t even care about the vomit that’s stuck over his front.

He feels like a baby, and he falls into the floor and begins to frantically tear his cupboard apart as he throws out old bottles and empty sprays of things he can’t read because his vision is obscured from the tears.

He’s sobbing so loud on the kitchen floor that he doesn’t even notice the front door slam open.

He’s managed to curl up on a ball on the floor, heaving heavy sobs when arms come up around him to pull him up.

“Dan?” Phil’s voice is scared and confused and when Dan looks up he meets his wild, wide eyes.

“I’m gonna clean it,” Dan slurs. His voice doesn’t even sound like his anymore and he feels like he’s beginning to float away.

Maybe he’s dying, he thinks. 

“Jesus, Dan,” Phil mutters, as a hand comes up to cup his face.

“You’re… you’re a mess,” Phil tells him. He lacks any anger or disapproval though, he merely sounds concerned. Dan’s not sure it it makes him feel better if worse.

Phil must notices the vomit and piss all over him because his expression softens into something sympathetic.

“Let me help you,” Phil says gently, slowly. It makes Dan cry again.

He recognises that voice; that voice that would speak to their daughter when she made a mess and Phil would run her a bath to make her feel better.

He wants that now.

“I want a bath,” Dan tells him. He feels dizzy all over.

“Okay, we’ll have a bath, just get up,” Phil grabs his arms and begins to pull him off the floor.

They take two steps together when Dan’s breath hitches and he lets out a sob.

“I don’t have a bath,” Dan tells him. Everything is blurry watercolour, dunked and washed away with cold, cold freezing water.

Phil is still holding him up like he’s afraid to let go, and Dan never wants him to.

“Let's get you out of here, yeah?” He speaks calmly.

Phil grabs a dirty towel from the bathroom for Dan to sit on and they make their way to the car. They pass a few of his neighbours that give him a sad, yet judgemental look.

He ignores them all and clings to Phil like he’s holding on for dear life, mainly because it feels like he is.

*

He wakes up in Phil’s drive, unsure of when he either passed out of fell back asleep, but Phil is tapping lightly at his cheek with soft fingers and a crease in his brow as he speaks quietly to him,

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go inside.”

They manage to make it out of the car and into Phil’s home. It’s small and nice and walking through the hallway gives Dan wobbly legs. He catches a familiar photo hanging on the wall and he feels his stomach roll.

“Are you gonna be sick again?” Phil asks as he continues to hold him up. Dan swallows down any bubbling feeling of nausea and shakes his head.

He can only hope he can keep it together long enough to make sure that’s a promise for now.

Phil takes him to the bathroom, where there is in fact a bath, and Phil sits Dan down on the toilet as he bustles around him.

Dan finds himself slouching over, hands over his face as he feels the urge to cry all too strong.

“I’m so sorry,” he slurs, feeling drunk in the way his brain is dripping and his whole body feels as if it’s a thousand miles away from where he really is; in Phil Lester’s bathroom.

The sound of running water quickly becomes louder as the tub begins to fill.

“It’s okay,” Phil mutters softly, barely audible over the gushing water. He kneels down in front of Dan and begins to take his shoes off.

Dan pulls away. “I can do it,” he frowns.

Phil watches him struggle for a little bit, his shoelace won’t budge and his feet feel too small in these shoes and he lets out a whimper of frustration.

“Let me help you,” Phil tells him after a while, placing a steady hand on his knee. Dan looks up straight into Phil’s eyes.

He nods, and Phil is quick to take both shoes off. He doesn’t stop there, and pulls of both socks.

“Can you do the rest?” Phil asks, he still has Dan’s socks balled up in his hands, clutching them tightly.

Dan stands and nods. He’s not sure when his eyes slipped shut, but it’s all darkness now as he pulls down his jogging bottoms, lifts his shirt up over his head and is stood in the middle of the bathroom in just his old pants.

When he opens his eyes, he sees Phil stood beside the bath, leaving over it as he stares down the the clear swirl of warm water.

“I’m ready,” Dan tells him in a quiet voice. Phil turns around, eyes quickly flicker over him for a second, before they meet his own eyes again.

Phil smiles a thin lipped smile. “Bath is almost done,” he whispers quietly. Dan almost misses it over the sound of running water.

He nods, feeling small now just stood in his underwear. He doesn’t miss Phil’s second look down before quickly looking up again.

“I’ll be outside,” he says quietly as he walks past Dan and out the door where he shuts it with a soft click.

*

The bath does in fact help. He remembers all the evenings where he’d feel stressed and out of his depth, treading water where he couldn’t touch the bottom, and Phil would come in like some domestic superhero and have him a bath, ready to submerge all his problems and soak away his anxieties.

It’s weird that it still somehow holds onto that magic still. He’s not sure if it’s bath in general, or if it’s been so long since he’s had one, or maybe it’s just Phil.

When he gets out, he realises he has no clothes to wear, only his ruined ones that are beside the toilet still.

He steps out onto the mat, and grabs the towel that’s hanging on the rack.

He pulls it over his body; it’s big enough to shroud him completely, and one look in the mirror and he realises he looks like E.T.

He cracks open the door and peeks his head out, the house is quiet and he can’t exactly hear whereabouts Phil is.

Another strange thing; he’s always been able to do that. He’d whistle whilst he worked, sung when he cooked or hummed whilst doing dishes.

It was always easy to locate him in his house purely by the little breadcrumbs of personality he’d leave behind him around their home.

But now, everything is eerily silent. No tv background noise. No specific spotify playlist for whatever activity he was doing. Not even the clang and crash of his clumsiness to give anything away.

He steps out of the bathroom and into the hallway. He tip toes his way down, and tries to find the living room. He passes another photo on the wall and ignore it, hard.

He breathes in through his nose and tries to keep any more terrible thoughts at bay, when all of sudden he’s smacking right into Phil.

Phil lets out a little oof, and Dan holds onto his towel tightly.

“Sorry,” Phil says with a breathy laugh. Dan does the same.

He then realises the stack of clothes Phil’s holding in his arms. They don’t look perfectly folded like they should do, but Dan looks back to him with a smile.

“For you,” Phil says, holding them out. 

Dan gingerly lets go of the towel with one hand and grabs at the clothes.

“These are actually yours,” Phil says, eyes fixated on the clothes in Dan’s grip now.

“I was meaning to bring them over to you,” he tells him as he looks back up at him. “After you gave me-“ he stops with a sharp breath. “I just thought I’d have a look for any of your stuff that might have been mixed up in the move.”

Dan is staring down at the crumpled shirt in his hand now, they’re warm like they’ve just come out of the dryer for him.

He looks back to Phil who’s now just a blurred through a screen of tears.

“Thanks,” he croaks. Phil smiles warmly at him.

“No problem.”

And then he’s gone.


	7. Chapter 7

Phil’s house is nice. It’s big and nice and warm and feels like a fraction of the home they used to have together; the walls aren’t peeling, the carpet isn’t stinking and the kitchen isn’t a horrible fucking mess.

Phil has a bathtub and a spare room for Dan to sleep in because Phil pays bigger bills than Dan does, because Phil has a job to go to and works hard and actually fucking tries at his life.

He realises this all as he sits in the said spare room staring at the cream wall that has a houseplant pressed up against.

It’s fake, Dan can tell. Phil was never any good at keeping real ones alive for very long. They’d make Sunday trips to the garden centre and Dan would pull him away from precious little plants and pots and make him promise to get over his sick obsession over buying and killing all things green.

Phil would laugh and bribe him into just one more. It always worked somehow.

The plant now is fake and green. No brown tips, no weird smell.

Just plastic and fooling no one.

There’s a knock at the door and Dan stands up quickly. He feels a head rush but blinks it away as the door opens.

“Are you decent?” Phil asks through the inch open gap.

Dan hums. “Yeah.”

The door pushes open further and Phil is stood there in the doorway, dressed in something more comfy than the jeans from earlier, and his glasses are now perched on his nose. His eyes look puffy and tired.

“I uh, I got food. It’ll be here in a little while if you wanna come sit in the living room with me,” he says.

He’s staring at Dan’s feet, avoiding his face.

Dan shifts a little.

“If you wanna eat in here, or whatever, that’s fine too.”

Dan shakes his head just as Phil looks up at him again.

“No,” Dan swallows. “No. I’ll eat with you.”

A ghost of a smile passes over Phil’s face before if fades away again.

“Cool. I’ll set everything up then,” he says.

Dan smiles back, only a tad more stronger. “Sounds good. Lead the way.”

*

They eat pizza in the living room with the tv off. Dan listens to the sound of Phil chewing on his slice, then the little yelp he makes when hot cheese burns the roof of his mouth.

Dan’s first instinct is to laugh when he looks over and sees Phil struggling with his food, cheese sticking to his chin as he flaps his free hand around to help dull the pain.

But then he stops. He stops because he remembers how incredibly insane this all feels. He’s sat on Phil’s sofa, in his living room, in his house that he’s never been to, eating pizza, in clothes Phil washed and dried for him after he’d run him a bath all because he’d walked in on his mental breakdown on his disgusting kitchen floor.

His heart swoops. It feels like maybe a dream. Like any moment now the moment will burst and he’ll be back on his floor feeling worse than ever and this is something he’ll have to explain to his therapist and she’ll call him crazy and lock him away somewhere.

But the moment doesn’t pop; it stays exactly how it is, and although it doesn’t feel real, Dan is forced into this reality whether he likes it or not. He’s here and he has to get on with it.

“Pizza’s bloody hot, isn't it?” Phil speaks once he’s recovered. Dan watches him pick up a slice and take a cautious bite with his teeth.

His stomach feels like a tidal wave machine at the pool, it keeps on coming up and up and up and leaves him no room to think or breathe. Only letting him start to drown until he stops.

“I was dreaming,” Dan blurts out. Phil’s swallows his mouthful of pizza and looks to Dan from where he’s sat on the other side of the couch.

He says nothing and keeps looking at Dan.

“I… I don’t usually dream of her, so I don’t know why it happened but,” he looks down at his own slice, where his fingers are slick with grease from his hold.

“I suppose it had to have happened at some point, right?” He says forcing a laugh as he looks back up at Phil. He can already feel the tears burn behind his eyes. Fuck.

“I’m sorry you had to see all of that,” he says quietly, ducking his head away as shame drags him back down. Phil’s seen a lot of Dan in their lifetime together; so many moments and emotions, so much skin and feelings bared naked to one another.

But what Phil whiteness today at the apartment… it wasn’t just nakedness. It was stripped down of his skin, of his armour, right down to the bone of his pain. All the meat of what protected him before had been chewed away and left to rot.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Phil speaks in a gentle voice. Dan’s heart clenches.

“There’s a lot to be sorry about though,” Dan speaks, his voice wobbles and he no longer trusts it to hold out for much longer.

He looks at Phil. He too, looks like he could crack at any moment.

“When I saw you at the group therapy, I was worried about you,” Phil tells him. The pizza is long forgotten and Phil’s somehow moved over towards him now. 

Dan doesn’t mind.

“When you stood up during the circle I…” Phil’s voice trails off into a whisper, becoming part of the air as it disappears.

“I don’t know what help you’re getting, Dan,” he speaks, voicing sounding clearer now. “But I think you’re trying, right?”

Dan blinks and tears roll down his face, making familiar tracks.

He sucks in a shaky breath.

He exhales and it hurts.

“I think so,” Dan speaks, looking at Phil. He reaches out, and holds onto Dan’s arm, a thumb runs over his skin so delicately that it feels like it’s barely there. It’s comforting nonetheless.

“It’s just so fucking hard,” Dan cries. He feels like he’s been cracked in two.

“I know,” Phil speaks, and it doesn’t take long to register that he’s now crying too.

“I just-“ Dan tries to speak, but he’s cut off with a sob.

Phil grips his arm tighter.

“I just,” Dan tries again as he swipes at his eyes with his greasy hand. He doesn’t care, everything is always messy, it feels like nothing will ever be clear again.

“I just don’t know,” he finally says. It comes out as a huff of hot air that is accompanied by a fresh wave of tears and Phil shuffles closer. He doesn’t hold onto him or hug him like Dan think he might, and he’s thankful for it.

He just holds his arm and runs his thumb across his skin there, over and over again.

Eventually, Phil speaks.

“Eat something,” he nods towards the pizza as he lets go of his arm. “Eat and get some rest, yeah?”

Dan sniffs and nods.

“It’s the best you can do for now,” he tells him. 

Dan agrees.

*

When Dan wakes up, he’s confused. He isn’t in his usual bed, he isn’t where he knows he should be and nothing is familiar. It takes him a while to realise that he’s in the living room still. He sits up, fast, and that’s when he realises the pair of legs draped over his.

It’s Phil, obviously, and he’s stretched out on the other side of the sofa, fast asleep with a blanket draped over them the best it could.

They must have fallen asleep, Dan thinks as he looks at the little coffee table and sees the pizza boxes, almost empty now, still open from the previous night.

Everything is a blur, and it feels as if he’s been drinking even though he knows he hasn’t; everything is in dribs and drabs and nothing has any linear sense to it. All he knows is he’s at Phil’s house, asleep with him on the couch with a belly full of good pizza and a chest feeling airy.

He looks at his lap and where Phil’s socked feet poke out the end of his side of the blanket. He lifts them off carefully as he stands.

His body feels heavy, like a soaked sponge as he gets up off the sofa. He watches Phil sleep for a second. It doesn’t feel all that weird when he already knows the line of drool that sticks to the side of his mouth, or the soft snores he makes with his nose, or the way he twitches in his sleep.

Or maybe it’s because he does know about that, it should be weird.

But he leaves nonetheless, heading to the bathroom where his gross clothes had been left, finding his shoes and he slips them on. He heads to the kitchen for a glass of water and sees the little notepad that’s stuck to the fridge. He gets a flurry of butterflies erupt in his stomach as he picks up the pencil and starts scratching down a messy note.

It reads simply:

thanks for last night. sorry i couldn’t stay. sorry for a lot of things. take care 

He stares at it until his eyes burn and his chest feels tight. He puts a little smiley face at the end for good measure, before he sets down the pencil and makes his way out the kitchen and out the house.

*

He gets lost a few times without his phone to tell him where he is, but he eventually makes the long walk from Phil’s house to his own apartment. He climbs the stairs, his bundle of dirty clothes in his arms before he pushes the door open, already knowing it’s not locked.

He’s not expecting his nana and his mum to be already standing there.

They make him jump, and he curses before he calms himself.

“Jesus, fuck,” he slaps a hand over his beating heart. “What the hell are you doing just standing there?” He asks as his eyes flicker from his mother to his grandmother.

They have a look of bewilderment plastered on their face. Maybe a bit of fear also.

“We were so bloody worried,” his mum is the first to speak, and as she moves closer, Dan notices the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

She lunges at him and wraps her arms tightly around him as best she can with the extra height has had on her.

She buries her face into his neck and it’s then that Dan knows for sure that she’s crying.

“What-“ Dan speaks, unsure of what’s going on as he awkwardly hugs his mum back. He looks over his mums shoulders to give his nana a puzzled look.

“We tried calling you all night and all morning,” she explains to him. He’s not sure how she can look so relieved and so upset at the same time.

“We had no idea where you were,” Karen says as she pulls away from Dan’s embrace as she wipes under her eyes. Her makeup is smudged black now under her eyes, almost like a sad looking panda.

“We came here and we saw the bottles on the floor and we just-“

Dan stops her. “What?”

Karen blinks at him. “Daniel. We had no idea what you might have done. The kitchen was a mess, you were gone, your living room was-“

She stops to look down and take a breath.

Dan looks at her before he looks back at his nana.

“Anything could have happened to you,” she speaks softly.

Dan swallows. His family had assumed the worst had happened to him. The mess in his apartment from his slight breakdown last night had warranted about concern that his own mum and his poor grandmother had thought he’d done something silly to himself.

They had it in mind that it’s something he was capable of.

At first he feels shameful. Then, he feels angry.

“You have no right to just come into my home like this.”

He spits the word 'home’ because he knows it’s a word that holds no weight to him. He can fool them though, he knows that.

“Dan,” his nana steps forward. “We were just trying to he—“

He cuts her off with a wild flap of his hand.

“No,” he says sharply. “No. I’m fine. I’m a fucking adult I don’t need my mum coming in and checking up on me and then having a go at me for nothing.”

Karen frowns, looking hurt. Something inside of Dan makes him feel bad; he doesn’t want to fight his mum. He doesn’t really want to fight anyone, but his therapists words coming echoing into his brain like they usually do, and he remembers how she told him about how grief pushes people away, even when you’re so desperate to cling onto them.

Nana looks like she might cry.

But she doesn’t. Because she’s nana. And nana never cries. Not in front of Dan at least.

“If you want us to leave, we can. You can’t blame us for worrying about you. It’s only because we love you,” she says. 

She’s such a smaller woman. She’s so full of fire though.

Dan closes his eyes. He feels tired and sad and weird and all over the place like his brain is made out of wet spaghetti. What he really wants is for them to wrap him up in a hug and let him cry for a bit.

But he doesn’t ask for that. He never would.

What he does do is pinch the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh.

“We’ll be going then,” Karen says quietly. “Now that we know that you’re quite alright.”

Maybe there is a bit of venom in her voice. He doesn’t look at them, but he can imagine the look his nana is giving her right now as well as a light slap on the arm probably.

Maybe she has a right to be annoyed. Maybe that’s just the other side of grief he hasn’t seen yet. Maybe his mum is an angry person now. He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know if he ever wants to really know.

When Dan opens his eyes again, his nana is stood in front of him with a warm smile, like she always is.

“Call us, Daniel,” she tells him. “If you need anything.”

She touches his arm, much like Phil had done yesterday, before they leave.

The door shuts without another word, and Dan is left alone again.

His dirty clothes feel a million times heavier in his arms and he lets them drop to the floor with a thud. As soon as they’re there, does he let out a sob.


	8. Chapter 8

_ “What do you think you worry about most, Dan?” Mindy asks. _

_ Her short dark hair is tucked behind her ears and it sits neatly above her shoulders. Five years now, coming back and forth to the same therapist and Dan doesn’t think that he’s ever seen her with a different kind of haircut. _

_ He realises he hasn’t answered her question yet when she taps her pen against her notebook. It’s a good way to drag him out of unnecessary thoughts. _

_ He sighs and sits back in his chair, rubbing his palms against his jeans. _

_ “Things that worry me?” He asks. She nods. _

_ “God,” he says, blowing out a puff of air. “A lot of things. Like, a lot of bloody things. I hear though that the older you get the more aware you become of life and stuff. Then once you have kids it’s like tenfold. Right?” _

_ Mindy laughs. “In some cases, yes, that might be true for some people,” she smiles. “Is if the same for you do you think?” _

_ Dan doesn’t have to really think about it. “Well, yeah. I worry about getting old. I worry about Phil getting hurt. Because if I get old and Phil gets hurt then it’s like a chain reaction for things, isn’t it? If I can’t be a good parent then what happens to my kids? If something happens to us then it happens to Cleo.” _

_ Mindy smiles and writes something down fast. Too fast for Dan to read, though, he knows that by now. _

_ “And if something happens to Cleo, is it the same thing I assume?” _

_ It almost makes Dan laugh. “Of course,” he tells her softly. “It’s a chain reaction. One huge mess just creates more mess.” _

_ Mindy nods in agreement. “And what would you do then, to help the situation?” _

_ Dan swallows hard at the question, the hypothetical question creating a wave of unease in his stomach. _

_ He shifts in his seat slightly as he looks right at her, right into her eyes. _

_ “Well,” he begins, “I’d do my best to clean it up.” _

*

When he gets to his therapist's office he feels like turning back. On the best of days he hates coming here anyways, but today it’s like an extra pinch of unwillingness to get him up and out of the apartment to make it to his appointment.

When he flops into his seat at the waiting room he feels the air rush out of his lungs. It always seems to suck the life from here from merely existing in this building. The receptionist smiles at him from the desk and she still has that bloody lemon shaped humidifier that’s annoying him.

He doesn’t hate it here; hate is a strong word and he knows that. He uses it because he knows it’s damage and knows how good it sometimes feels to use that word against people to make sure it stings them, like salt in a wound.

But he doesn’t  _ hate _ his therapist. She’s not like Mindy. She’s a lot different from Mindy in a lot of different ways.

Mindy was like a friend. This new therapist hasn’t crossed that threshold just yet where Dan feels like he could crack a joke or maybe tell her to shut up at times.

Because this therapist is here for much deep rooted issues. She’s not here to bant. She’s here to fix his fucking head and help him get rid of his trauma.

That’s what it is. He has trauma.

The word creates barbed wire spike in his chest, wrapping around his chest and gripping against him tight and sharp, too harsh to breathe.

His name is called just as his palms are beginning to sweat.

*

She’s talking about something. Dan isn’t listening to the meaning of what she’s saying, it’s all just empty words to him; letters squished together to make sounds with no real meaning.

He’s focusing on the carpet of her office and trying to remember how to breathe.

He finally focuses on what she’s saying when he hears his name being spoken softly.

“Daniel?”

Dan. His name is Dan to people he knows well. Does his therapist not know him?

“I-“ he tries to speak but he’s cut off by his own sharp breath.

He looks up at her and she looks conceded. 

Concern. It’s the only expression he understands these days. When was the last time someone laughed with him, or smiled with him? He can’t even remember, now that everything around him is so fragile and weak.

“I had a dream. The other day?” He tries to speak, but it’s like his throat has closed up and his voice goes scratchy.

She says nothing but leans forward, like she’s really listening.

Dan really fucking hope she is.

“It was… it was about a lot of stuff,” Dan says, staring down at the carpet again, hoping she doesn’t interrupt to ask questions, because he feels like he could spew everything now. He might not be able to stop once he starts, and for once, he really hopes that’s true.

“It wasn’t really… you know… coherent. It wasn’t exactly like a memory but I knew what it was.”

He looks up and she has her pen settled on her lap, untouching of it.

“It was mostly in colours? Like red. Lots of red. And then, crying. Phil was there.  _ She _ … wasn’t exactly there, like a face or person or anything but - but I knew she was there. It was about her.”

He stops, letting out a shaky breath as he leans all the way back in his seat and closes his eyes to rest his hand over them. He feels safe like this, in the dark like he’s alone. But he hears her clear her throat and he’s reminded of her presence in the room.

“Okay,” she speaks slowly. “Okay. And was this the first time? That you’ve had a dream this vivid?”

Dan doesn’t have to think hard about that one. “Yeah. Nothing this… clear before.”

He sniffs, and she writes something down. 

“Do you have any idea on what might have brought this on? Some old memories come up recently? Something you saw? Someone you saw?”

Dan swallows thickly. He hadn’t mentioned Phil to her as of yet, or the card or anything else for that matter. He knows she won’t be actually angry at him for keeping things in, but he can’t help the feeling of shame when he says:

“Yeah, actually. A lot of stuff.”

But she doesn’t get angry. Doesn’t seem cross or tell him off for doing the opposite of what she’s said before. Instead she smiles, leans forward and nods at him.

“Okay,” she says while pushing her glasses up her nose. “Start from where you thinks best.”

*

When Dan gets out of the office, he feels strangely light, like he might fly away.

He walks with his two feet on the ground despite the feeling like he’s ten feet above everyone else. It’s no feeling of elation or happiness. He just felt less like he has sandbags tied to his ankles.

He gets hallway home when he realises how hungry he is, and with only a few notes in his pocket, he ducks into the nearest Starbucks and joins the queue.

He’s halfway there when he feels a hand land on his shoulder, causing him to spin around so fast he almost falls over.

“Dan!” Phil says in a breath, like he’d been running.

“Phil,” Dan says dumbly, mainly because he doesn’t know what else to say.

Phil’s face breaks into a small smile, hand squeezes his shoulder until he lets go.

“I was worried about you the other day, when you left that morning,” he tells him as they step out the line to let others pass. 

“I was gonna text you, see if you were okay but…” he trails off. “I didn’t know if that was, y’know, crossing any kind of lines.”

Dan stares at him for a moment before he blinks and shakes his head.

“No,” he says quickly. “No that’s- that’s fine. Thank you, by the way. As well as being sorry, I’m just a -“

“A mess?” Phil finishes off for him.

Dan sighs. “Yeah,” he nods.

Phil glances over Dan’s shoulder to the dying line behind them, then back to Dan.

“Do you wanna grab a coffee with me?”

His stomach swirls despite it being empty, but before he can dwell on those feelings for too long, he nods.

“Sure. Why not.”

*

They grab a coffee to go, and end up taking a walk. They don’t talk all that much, picking up on random scraps of conversation. Dan asks about Kath and Phil rambles on about his parents and their house beside the cliffs and Dan ends up telling Phil the same story about Colin that his mum had told him the other day.

Phil laughs as he sips at his coffee. “God, Colin must be getting old bones now, huh?”

Dan nods. “Hmm. Mum said he’s still as spritely as he once was though.”

Phil laughs again. “That’s good I suppose. I guess we could all wish to be like Colin then.”

A breeze passes past them and Dan shivers slightly.

“Oh!” Phil exclaims, stopping suddenly on the pavement. “Give me five minutes, I just need to hop in here,” he rushes out, before he’s disappeared into one of the little shops.

Dan looks up at the sign, and huffs a laugh out his nose. 

A florist.

He goes inside and finds Phil already talking to the woman at the cashier. There’s a bunch in pink flowers on the desk being wrapped up as Phil seemingly rifles through his wallet.

He must not hear Dan come up behind him, because he jumps when he catches sight of him.

They both laugh awkwardly, and so does the woman.

Phil pays, they both say thank you and Phil leaves with the flowers under his arm.

When they’re back out on the street, Dan taps one of the petals.

“For a special lady?” He jokes. Phil snorts, although his smile doesn’t quiet reach far enough got it to look all too believable.

Dan doesn’t ask, and they carry on walking. When he recognises the area they’re in, and where they’re headed, he realises he doesn’t need to ask who the flowers are for.

They get to the cemetery gates and Dan pauses.

“You don’t have to come in,” Phil tells him. “You can go if you like. Or I’ll call you a cab. Or I’ll leave and you can… you can do what you want.”

Dan stares at him, hard. He looks at the way he’s stood here, his red zip up hoodie frames his body to make him look small. His quiff is messy and his glasses are sliding down his nose.

He looks sad, Dan realises. Like, really sad.

“I’ll come in with you,” Dan says as he takes a step forward. He pauses. “If you want me to.”

Phil smiles, something warm and real and he nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s okay.”

They push open the gate and walk in together.

The grave is just how Dan had left it the last time he’d come. He stands back as Phil crouches down and tends to the flowers already there, and settles the new ones into the holder, arranging them the best he can to make them look good.

It does look good, Dan thinks, and he feels a sense of crushing guilt when he realises that every bunch of flowers that’s been laid here have been brought by Phil. He doesn’t usually bring things to keep at her grave, but just expects something pretty and sweet here.

He watches as Phil kisses at his fingers and presses them to the grave stone.

He whispers a few things that Dan’s not close enough to hear, but it feels weird that he should want to.

He knows that Phil likes to… talk to her. Like she’s in there.

And technically she is. Her ashes had been scattered over this place along with a few other parts of their memories.

But their daughter… she isn’t  _ here. _

He won’t destroy that for Phil though. No matter how fucking fucked everything is in his life, no matter how angry and hurt he is or becomes, he won’t make fun of a man talking to a grave that holds as his dead daughters resting place because it gives him some kind of comfort that Dan can’t understand. 

He’s not that much of an asshole.

After a while, Phil stands up and takes a few steps back to stand beside Dan.

He sniffs and shoves his hand into his pockets.

“I was thinking of having it cleaned?” He says, nodding at the stone. “The winter weather will probably fade it, and I know they have a cleaning service here that keeps them in condition, so…”

He trails off again.

Dan nods. “That sounds nice.”

Phil looks at him. Dan feels him smile.

“Yeah.”

They both stand there in silence as they listen to the far away sound of traffic from behind them, and the rustle of trees that sway in the wind. Hues of oranges and browns come down from them and land on the floor, signalling that Autumn is in full swing.

A leaf lands on the gravestone. 

Dan looks at it before he takes a careful step forward and crouches down, ignoring the creaks in his knees and brushes off the leaf.

When he stands again, he lets out a little sigh.

“There you go,” he whispers. “I can see you now.”

He’s not sure if he’s talking to Phil or to Cleo, but the words alone seem to lift him just a little bit, and Phil bumps his shoulder into his. Dan presses back, and neither of them pull apart.


	9. Chapter 9

_ The cab drivers slams his hand over the horn aggressively just as Dan’s phone begins to ring.  _

_ The driver is cussing and spitting out his anger towards the build up of traffic that’s lined up ahead of them. Dan is quick to fish out his phone to avoid any conversation with the man that’s turning a deep shade of red as he frustrations continues to bubble. _

_ He doesn't even have to check it’s Phil before he clicks answer and holds it to his phone. _

_ “Hey,” he says tiredly as he rests his head against the window. “Literally got out of therapy like ten minutes ago and now the traffic is… well it’s shite.” _

_ Phil laughs on the other end. “I guess I can’t bribe you into bringing coffee home then, can I?” _

_ Dan laughs at him. “Coffee fiend. Make your own coffee, I’m jammed at the moment babe.” _

_ Phil sighs dramatically. “I hate you. My tummy hates you too.” _

_ He snorts, “Does it? Well, maybe I hate you too. What’ve you been up to this morning, other than being a coffeeless slug?” _

_ Phil hums, pretending like he’s listening. “Well, first of all, I cried because we were out of coffee. Then Cleo spilt her Frosties on the floor and created a milk ocean across out kitchen.” _

_ Dan hums in amusement. _

_ “Aaaaand then we watched some cartoons, had some laughs, drank some juice and complained that she wanted daddy home now. With coffees.” _

_ Dan shakes his head. Unbelievable. _

_ “Using our child to get me to be your coffee salve are we?” _

_ Phil laughs again. “Coffee slave, cat boy salve - it’s all the same isn’t?” _

_ Dan is about to reply with something snarky when the driver shouts again, making Dan jump. He hears Phil snicker over the line. _

_ “Bad traffic?” He teases. Dan sinks into his seat a little lower. _

_ “Bad driver, bad traffic,” he mutters as he avoids the drivers yells again. _

_ “Sounds like someone’s having a bad day,” Phil says. _

_ Dan hums as he looks out the window and watches the stationary cars beside him. _

_ “Someone somewhere always is,” Dan tells him.  _

_ Phil hums in agreement. _

_ “Anyway. I’ll see you soon, yeah?” Phil speaks after a beat of silence. _

_ Dan hums again, running a hand over his face, “Yeah,” he yawns. “Shouldn’t be too long.” _

_ Phil hums. It sounds like he’s maybe going to say goodbye, but he stops. _

_ “Oh,” he says, voice a little muffled. “Cleo wants to talk to you real quick - Cleo, here’s daddy!” _

_ Dan chuckles to himself as he hears the shuffle of passing the phone over to their child. _

_ Dan feels his heart squeeze when he hears her sweet little voice on the other end of the line. _

*

By the time they’ve reached Dan’s apartment, the last of his coffee has gone cold in his cup, yet, he’s unwilling to throw it away just yet.

“I’d offer for you to come in but,” Dan pauses and Phil nods with a smile. 

“It’s okay,” he assures him with a shrug. “I better be going anyway.”

Dan nods, and scuffs the toe of his shoe on the floor.

They stand in silence for a moment listening to the traffic for a moment before Phil smiles at him one last time, and leaves.

Just as Dan pushes open the door, he hears Phil’s voice calling him, causing him to pause and look around.

“Dan,” Phil says, still clutching tight to his empty coffee cup. “Thanks. For coming with me today. I know it can be hard.”

There’s a crease in his brow and a slight sparkle in his blue eyes. No matter what, they’re still so bright, Dan notices.

“It’s okay,” Dan shrugs, a thin smile stretching across his lips. “Sometimes you gotta do whatever it is to make it less hard, right?”

Phil blinks at him, and he grins, little wrinkles form by his eyes.

“Right. See you, Dan.”

Dan’s heart squeezes. “See you, Phil.”

*

He calls Bryony within the next hour. He feels restless and jittery like he’s just injected drugs into his fucking brain.

She doesn’t answer and he tuts as he looks back at his screen.

He texts her instead. It’ll do for now.

_ ‘big news to tell u later btw’ _

He hits sent before quickly typing out a second text.

_ ‘call me when u get off work pls ty bby’ _

His second go to is he calls his mum.

By the third ring he’s worrying about if it’s a good idea to perhaps do this, but before he can back out, it’s way too late.

“Dan?” Her voice cusps on the edge of worry. She clearly tries to cover it but Dan sees straight through her. Or at least,  _ hears _ right through her.

He first tells her:

“I’m fine, don’t worry.”

She sighs, then it catches onto a wobbly laugh.

“Why do you scare your poor old mum like that?”

Dan bites at his thumb, “You’re not old,” he mumbles. “Don’t call yourself old.”

She chuckles. “What brings you to my phone number then? Need something? Or just a chat?”

Dan blinks, unsure of why he suddenly feels like crying, until he realises how much he recognises the comfort in her voice even when teasing.

He blinks them back where they burn hot.

“Yeah. A chat would be nice. Last couple of days have been… weird.”

He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand and tears explode. He keeps in any kind of sobs, and lets the fall silently without his mum knowing.

“Okay darling, I can do that,” she says softly, and he hears her moving around, papers shuffling and a chair being pulled back.

Anxiety grips at his throat for a second. “You weren’t busy, was you?” He asks, biting his thumb.

He hears his mum sit down. “No love! Never busy for my baby bear.”

Dan blushes at the silly pet name, and huffs out a laugh. “Don’t call me that.”

Karen laughs back. “I’ll stop calling you baby bear when you stop being one.”

It doesn’t make sense, but it makes Dan feel loved nonetheless. His heart goes a bit soupy in his chest.

“What’s up, love? What do you want to chat about?”

Her voice is gentle and soft, and reminds Dan of being a child when he’d have a bad dream and he’d crawl into his mums bed and let her comfort him until it was safe to sleep.

He wants that again; the emotional reassurance a mum can give.

“I‘ve been speaking to Phil,” he tells her. There’s silence on the line for a moment, and Karen says nothing, waiting patiently for Dan to carry on.

“I was, uh, having a bit of a hard time the other day,” he tells her. He’ll easily skip out the whole breakdown chunk of the story; she’d already seen the physical evidence of it, she didn’t need the emotional back up of it too.

“He helped me out,” he tells her quietly. “We had dinner and then we saw each other today.”

He pauses to take a breath. So much _ had _ happened within the last few days that time was a blur now. It didn’t matter though, since nothing to Dan was even linear to begin with.

“We had coffee,” he tells her and she hums. “And then, we went to the grave.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Well that’s lovely Dan. That’s really good to hear. Did you leave flowers?”

Dan squirms in his seat. “Yeah, well actually, Phil did.”

“Good,” Karen says and Dan can tell she’s probably beaming. “That’s good. Gets you out that apartment for once.”

Dan hums. The tears are still burning his eyes and he still feels all over the place nonetheless.

“It’s just that-“ he stops.

She’s patient as ever. 

“I feel like I’m constantly crossing over myself, you know? Nothings ever… straightforward anymore.”

He lets out a long sigh like it were a breath he’d been holding in for too long. His lungs burn and his chest aches with it.

Karen sighs too, more gentle, more softer.

“Of course it isn't. Nothing is straightforward; nothing ever  _ was. _ ”

She speaks to him as if it’s supposed to be obvious, and for a second he feels a flare of anger begin to spark in his chest before he calms it, and reminds himself that it was  _ him _ that’s called his mum for advice. Not the other way around for once.

He doesn’t say anything, and waits for anything else she has to say.

“Pain isn’t one straight line, sweetheart. It’s a fucking cross cross, wobbly mess that ties you over and hurts.”

Dan sniffs.

“Nobody, not me, not your nana or even Phil is expecting you to do this like it’s easy,” she tells him.

Dan nods even though she can’t see him.

“It’s really not so easy, and it’s okay to say that. It’s okay if you start finding it easier in a week, in a month, in a year, or if it never truly becomes all that easy,” she says, Dan hanging onto every word.

“That’s the thing,” Dan speaks, his voice cracking, “I feel like everyone is ahead of me. I feel like I’m stuck at stage one and everyone around me has gotten to the end.”

It’s true; he feels like he’s one foot deep in wet, thick sand, still feeling the same way he did last year, whilst everyone else has pushed through the thick of it, leaving him behind to kick and cry and feel suffocated underneath it all.

Karen gives a soft laugh, no way teasing whatsoever.

“Oh darling,“ she coos, and her voice makes Dan want to cry.

“Grief isn’t a race, it’s just about making it together. It’s a marathon, honey. You just have to run alongside each other, even if you’re at the back. There’s no prize, no end goal, not really. It’s just about making it to the other side with those around you.”

Dan feels tears prickle behind his eyes before he lets out a wet laugh. A few tears do escape.

“God,” he blubbers as he wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. “You and your fucking running metaphors,” he laughs, and Karen laughs too. 

“What, did Adrian teach you that one?” He asks and she laughs again. It feels nice.

“Actually, I taught my children everything they know. All credit to me, thank you very much.”

Dan laughs again, until he cries. He sighs as lets the tears fall now.

“Did you ever get around on teaching me how to move past your dead daughter and your failed marriage?”

It’s blunt, and as soon as Dan’s said it, he feels bad. Cleo was just as much as her first and only grandchild as she was Dan’s first and only child.

Karen clears her throat, and it’s a telltale sign he’s aware of that she’s upset now. Guilt pools in his stomach like vomit.

“No,” she tells him. “I can’t tell you how to do that love. Well - actually, the failed marriage part, maybe,” she says and Dan actually laughs.

She does too.

“But I couldn’t possibly imagine it, Dan,” she says. Her voice has gone raspy and quiet and it’s evident that she’s probably crying too now.

“I could never and would ever want to put myself in your shoes, even for a day. I wish I could take your pain away, I really do. Watching your baby lose a baby is…” her voice trails off just as it goes wobbly and she sniffs wetly.

“It’s near enough torture. And if it hurts me like that, then I wouldn’t begin to even imagine how much it must hurt you and Phil.”

Dan’s stomach clenches at Phil’s name.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “It’s really fucking tough.”

“And you’re so much more fucking tougher.”

Dan gives a half sob.

“I love you, you know that? I always felt like I probably never said it as much as I should have when you were little.”

Dan gives a half hum. He’s worked through the little parts of his childhood trauma. He’s worked hard on fixing that part of his life over the years. He doesn’t need to hold that guilt to his mum anymore; he’s past it. 

“I probably wasn’t a perfect mother. I probably still aren’t. But it doesn’t mean I love you any less.“

Dan wipes his nose on the hem of his shirt.

“You weren’t entirely shit,” he half laughs.

Karen does the same back.

“But I love you too,” he adds. “Just so you know.”

Karen hums. “I know darling.”

They say their goodbyes and Dan hangs up. He presses his phone hard into his chest where it feels like he might break and bleed, and he lets a few more tears escape.


	10. Chapter 10

A little past midnight and he finally gets a text back from Bryony:

_ ‘what’ _

_ ‘im at a lesbian club rn u should come here’ _

Dan chews on his lip. There’s a chance she could be drunk, and he’s done a good job of avoiding alcohol as of late.

_ ‘tired. talk tomorrow?’ _

She doesn’t reply for a while, and Dan imagines her probably leaning across a bar, her pink hair cascading behind her as she slurs her words to the prettiest girl beside her, ignoring Dan’s sadness just for one night so she can be happy.

But she texts back, and it’s not at all how Dan expects it to be.

_ ‘am sad. come get me pls:(‘ _

He chews harder at his lip until he’s ripping off skin and a spot of blood bursts on his skin.

He sighs.

_ ‘where are you?’ _

*

The air is thick tonight, Dan thinks as he walks down the London streets. Or maybe it’s just different to how the air usually feels in the day, since he’s usually asleep by the time the sun starts to dip.

He can hear the thumping sound of the club up ahead, and his heart starts to beat in time with the music, each step closer he feels his anxiety grow bigger.

He hates clubs. And right now he hates Bryony for even coming here and making him come get her.

But he can’t imagine himself leaving her here, even if it were a bar full of cool lesbians; he’s not that much of a bad friend.

When he gets to the club there’s a few people mingling outside. One woman with short cropped hair and dark skin blows smoke from her lips as another stands close beside her and talks.

He’s always liked the smell of smoke, even if he’d ever really taken up on the bad habit; maybe the second hand smell from strangers was all he’d have to indulge in that interest of his.

A few men are also hanging around, and it makes his stomach do a funny squirm as they laugh and take swigs of their beers, eyes clearly trained on the back sides of women coming in and out of the front doors.

Of course, to an outsider, Dan can’t look any less terrible: a male heading inside a lesbian bar would look dodgy to anybody, and it’s one of the few times he wishes he had a stamp on his head that read:

_ “Don’t worry, I’m also Gay.” _

He manoeuvres his way through the crowd. Bry had texted him to tell him to meet her at the bar, so he awkwardly pushes himself around two ladies who are grinding up against each other on the dance floor in hopes of finding his friend.

When he reaches the bar, the woman behind it with long dark hair gives him a look, eyes flit up and down, her face parallel to a look of hidden disgust.

“It’s okay!” A drunken voice says suddenly in his ear, making him jump.

“He’s here to take me home. My hero. My very gay, lovely, handsome hero.”

Bryony wraps her arms as best she can around Dan’s shoulders and hums into his neck.

Dan looks back at the bartender who smiles at him now, a forgiving look.

“I think you must be drunk,” he yells over the music. “You’re never this nice to me.”

Bryony peels herself off of him and snorts a loud laugh, head tipping back.

“I’m always nice to you,” she shakes her head. 

She tries to bop him on the nose but she misses. She either doesn’t care or doesn’t notice.

The bartender finds it funny.

“Let’s get you home, yeah?” Dan says, taking her by the hand and giving it a squeeze.

But Bryony whines and pulls away, much like a toddler not wanting to go to bed just yet.

He manages to wrangle her safely away from the bar, where she clings on for a few more seconds just to flirt with the bartender, who flirts back, and Dan says thank you and goodbye and they leave.

When Bryony feels the fresh air hit her, she stumbles and Dan catches her. She laughs and Dan holds her up.

He remembers the nights out they used to have where they’d both hold each other up, drunken messes that would fall about laughing whilst Phil would laugh at them and make sure they all got home safe.

His stomach flips at the now distant memories.

“Alright,” Dan grunts as Bryony digs her elbow in his ribs. “We need drunk people food. Like, now.”

Bryony only hums a laugh in response.

*

They’re lucky to find a place that’s still open and willing to serve them.

Dan gets Bryony a kebab since she keeps pestering him for one, and Dan gets a salad, reminding himself of his vegan promises.

She stuffs meat in her mouth, the chilli sauce sticks to her face around her painted smudged lips, and she moans, loud.

“Fuck, this is good. This is so good, have some. It’s better than sex,” she says loudly in the small shop that’s empty apart from them. 

Dan sinks in his chair, swatting away her hand that holds a slice of meat, waving it in the air.

“You’re boring,” she scowls as she eats it herself. 

“When  _ was _ the last time you had sex? Mine would have been tonight with that fucking gorgeous bartender if you hadn’t stolen me,” she frowns like she’s genuinely angry.

Dan pushes away his paper plate full of greens, ignoring her question entirely.

“You asked me to come pick you up? Remember?”

She pauses her chewing to think. She shakes her head.

“Bull. I wanted to have fun. Fun with you. Fun with sexy ladies. Fun with sex.”

She laughs at her own joke and Dan sighs.

“You’d be regretting it in the morning. You know that. Drunk stranger sex is dangerous, you’re the one always preaching that.”

She prods her fingers into her kebab messily.

“I  _ wanted _ to have dangerous drunk stranger sex. Makes me feel less…” her voice trails off as she picks apart the bread and pops it her mouth.

“Less sad?” Dan finishes for her. She looks up and looks at him with deep eyes.

Dan wonders if he’s maybe touched a nerve, pressed too hard, but it was her that brought it up. She’d put the card down and Dan was only picking them back up for her.

“I  _ am _ sad,” she sighs. She drops her food with a slap and sits back in her chair with a huff.

Dan chews at his lip again.

He doesn’t say anything, and she takes it as the perfect opportunity to keep talking.

“I am sad because I feel like sometimes my problems are worthless is comparison.”

Dan looks up at her with that.

“I don’t wanna complain about… useless shit, because it’s always worse for someone else, y’know?”

It sounds like she might cry; her voice is thick with emotion and her eyes are sparkling under the dim lights.

“That’s not true,” Dan whispers. She doesn’t look convinced.

“How the fuck am I supposed to sit here and complain, Dan, about how shite my love life is, or how much I hate my job when you’re sat in front of me trying to get over the death of your fucking  _ kid? _ ”

It comes out in an angry burst, leaning forward in her plastic chair where it creaks, and Dan feels the air grow tight in his lungs once she’s finished.

The smell of the kebab meat makes his stomach roll.

She looks down. “Fuck,” she whispers.

“Fuck, sorry. That’s - that’s not fucking fair. I’m sorry.”

Dan doesn’t say anything, listening to the sound of the quiet kitchen behind them. A loud group of people walk past the street outside, their laughter and words muffled by the glass that separates them.

“No,” Dan croaks. He looks right at her, even though there’s tears starting to form behind his eyes.

“No, it is fair. There’s no excuse for me not to want to listen to your problems. Everyone is having a shit time,” he tells her. “We just have to help each other. It’s like a marathon.”

Bryony blinks at him, and a smudge of black is under her eyes from her ruined mascara.

“A what?” She croaks.

Dan laughs, his own tears falling now.

“A marathon. It’s a Karen nugget of wisdom.”

Bryony laughs, her teeth flashing, and it makes Dan laugh too.

“God, I love your mum,” she says with a shake of her head.

Dan picks up a bit of lettuce and rips it in half.

He smiles at her, and she smiles back, despite the tears dribbling down both their faces.

“Me too. Sometimes.”

She sniffs. “Sorry for being so useless sometimes.”

Dan kicks her gently under the table.

“Hey, you can’t talk about yourself like that.”

She smiles. “Am I though?” She asks him, her face contorting into worry.

“Am i really useless and shit? I don’t…” she cuts herself off with a sharp sigh.

“I don’t know what to say to you. Or Phil,” she says, sitting up a little, and it’s obvious that she’s sobered up since the bar.

“I never know how to talk about it with you,” she says gently.

Dan looks at her.

“Mate, I don’t even know how to talk about it, so I don’t really expect for you to know either.”

She frowns, a little crease appears between her brows.

“But like, am I doing enough still? Is it the best I can do? Or is there more?”

Dan doesn’t have an honest answer, simply because he doesn’t really know.

He reaches across the table and takes her hand in his. One of her rings is cool against his clammy palm.

“Yeah. You’re always good enough. You’re a good friend, Bry, even if it’s just cooking me chicken. You’re still going okay.”

Her face crumpled and more tears escape. The waitress behind the counter must think they’re right loons. Dan doesn’t care as he starts crying with her.

“We’re all such fucking messes.” Dan laughs.

Bryony laughs too, loud enough that it echoes off the walls of the little shop.

It’s the first time in a long while that Dan cries tears of laughter.

*

When Dan wakes the next day, it’s just before sunrise, which is something new to him. Sunlight pools in through the crack in his blinds in smudges of orange and blues; autumn now in full swing.

He’d usually be excited for the season, enjoying the festivities, the nostalgia of this time of year - but now it only brought him a new kind of pain that wrapped itself around him, and refused to let him go or let him enjoy anything else.

He wakes, eyes fluttering open and stares up at his ceiling. There’d been no bad dreams last night, just more empty nothingness that made the nights seem faster than what they really were.

He hears the beginning of traffic outside his window, and he lays there and listens to it for a moment.

He half smiles, the moment brings him back to a distant memory. A memory where he’s younger and in a place far from here. He’s on his back and the bed is bigger and he’s not taking up space in the middle.

_ Phil traces his fingers over his bare chest and it tickles, but Dan doesn’t squirm away. He stays exactly where he is. _

_ “Why are we awake?” Phil whispers. His hot morning breath wisps past the bare skin of his neck where he’s tucked up against him. _

_ Dan’s hand finds his shoulder and he runs his hands up and down the skin there. _

_ “Dunno. I like the world when it’s early,” Dan whispers back. _

_ Phil snorts. “No you don’t. You hate getting up early - almost as much as I do.” _

_ Dan laughs, and squeezes Phil’s shoulder, making him bury his face into the space between Dan’s neck and shoulder, humming there as his laughs become muffled. _

_ When Phil pulls away, Dan crooks his neck to look at him; he’s sleepy looking with his inky black hair a mess. His eyes are ringed with a faint purple that’s disappearing as the morning grows, and there’s a line of stubble across his square jaw. _

_ Dan takes his free hand and runs his fingers against the grain. _

_ “It’s like practice,” Dan whispers. Phil’s smile is almost knowing, but Dan continues anyway. _

_ “Practice for when we don’t have a choice on how early we wake up,” he tells him.  _

_ “But it’s okay, because you’ll do the feeding and I’ll do the nappies.” _

_ Phil snorts another laugh. “You’re gonna be such a good dad,” he says softly. _

_ Dan feels his heart melt. He really hopes he will be. He doesn’t want to fuck it up. He wants this so bad. He wants to be such a good dad. _

_ “Yeah?” Dan croaks, feeling a little choked up. “I think you’ll be a good dad too.” _

_ Phil hums, and his eyes shut again. His hand blindly finds Dan’s, and they lace their fingers together. _

_ “Such good dads,” Phil mumbles tiredly. “Besf of the best.” _

_ Dan laughs quietly, and runs a thumb over Phil’s knuckles. _

_ “Yeah,” he whispers. “Best of the best.” _

*

When Dan gets out of bed, he showers, washes his hair and promises himself to go down to Starbucks and get himself something to eat, since he knows that breakfast, or anything edible for that matter, actually exists within this flat.

He’s just blow drying his hair when he finally checks his phone.

He has one from Bryony that reads:

_ ‘thanks for last night rlly means a lot. mwah ily handsome boy. come group therapy with me tomorrow? i’ll buy you coffee ;)’ _

The next is from his nana:

_ ‘Hi darling. Just checking up on you. I made more rock cakes and wanted to see if you were busy later this week as I’ll be in the area and could come give my grandson a good cuddle and cake. Let me know sweetheart. Love Nana xxx’ _

He feels his heart tug at both texts. So maybe he could work on his relationship a little more, and even though last night with Bryony in the kebab shop was a very teeny tiny step, he couldn’t help but admit how nice it had felt just to talk to someone who wasn’t a professional for once.

He makes a note that he  _ will _ reply to them later, already feeling the weird swirl of what feels like anticipation for group therapy as well as his nana’s rock cakes (and his nana of course) but before he can start to type of any of the messages, he gets a new one come through.

It’s from Phil, and Dan doesn’t even hesitate to open it and read it.

_ ‘Hey dan hope you are well. It’s been good seeing you these last few days. It makes me feel a little bit less alone in such a situation we are both so closely tied to. I hope you don’t mind me saying that. Anyway, I was looking through some stuff here and noticed that I do have some of your things, nothing majorly important but you can come over and collect them whenever :) Take care:)’ _

Dan bites the inside of his cheek, feeling the skin there begin to break with the intensity of it all.

He types back,

_ ‘sounds like a good idea. thanks for helping me also. i’ll see you at group tomorrow?’ _

He hits send, thinking it may take a while for Phil to reply. He’s just about to set his phone back down when it vibrates, making him jump.

He looks at the screen, and feels his heart twist in his chest when he sees who it’s from.

_ ‘see you then’ _


	11. Chapter 11

When Dan wakes the next morning, he has no real motivation to get up. He doesn’t care about group therapy, or wanting to see Bryony. Or even seeing Phil today.

Depression has dug its sharp, painful claws into his sides and pinned him down, making him unable to get up from his bed.

He checks the time on his phone a few times. The first time is around six, the second is seven, and when he checks again, it’s gone past twelve and he knows he’s missed the session for today.

He ignores the string of texts he sees pop up on his screen, and sets his phone upside down and buries his head back into his pillow where he feels almost suffocated.

He’s not going to be able to sleep; he never can when his brain is this foggy, but he’s floating somewhere when he hears a knock at the door.

He cracks open an eye, and hears it again.

“Dan?”

It’s Phil. Outside his apartment door.

He shuffles deeper under his covers, as if it’ll hide him away from whatever confrontation he may have to face if he were to get up and open the door.

But Phil knocks again, clearly persistent, and hears Phil’s muffled voice speak to him.

“You weren’t at therapy today.”

Dan still makes no effort to get up.

“I don’t know why. I tried calling you, Bryony too. I just wanted to come by, see if you’re okay?”

There’s a tone of hopefulness to his voice that Dan can’t miss. It’s always been there; that optimistic vibe that he puts out into the world.

There’s silence, before Phil speaks again.

“At least let me know if you’re alive in there. I got you coffee and bagels.”

He hears him give a weak laugh, maybe sounding a touch worried now as he tries to mask it with his lightheartedness.

Dan sits up, and rubs his eye with his knuckle.

The least he could do is  _ thank _ him. He lets out a hot breath and rolls over.

“Yeah, uh, gimme a sec,” he calls out to him.

His voice is broken and tired sounding, and he’s quick to stumble out of bed and pull up his discarded sweatpants off the floor as well as an old T-shirt.

He makes his way through the short hall and opens the door. It hadn’t even been locked from the night before.

Phil’s standing there, obviously, looking a little bit off guard. Like he wasn’t fully expecting Dan to open the door.

But he’s stood there in his hoodie and glasses and as promised, two coffees and a bag that he really hopes has the bagels in and Dan smiles timidly at him.

“Sorry,” he croaks.

Phil’s face relaxes and he smiles back.

“It’s okay,” he shrugs, the paper bag wrinkles in his hand. “I didn’t know if you’d eaten today so I got you breakfast. Or lunch. Or brunch.”

He laughs and Dan hums.

Phil blinks at him for a second through his glass lense before holding the bag out.

Dan takes it, but steps backwards.

“Do you wanna… eat with me? Like, in here?”

He’s not sure why he says it, in a voice that sounds so small and unsure, but Phil looks at him, like he’s taken aback for a moment before he’s nodding.

“Sure,” he says, clearing his throat. “I can eat with you.”

*

They eat in the living room, because there’s no place else in the apartment for them to go that Dan feels ashamed of.

Phil won’t stop looking around, and Dan tells him to sit and goes to grab two plates.

He comes back empty handed because he remembers he hasn’t washed any dishes in a good few weeks, but Phil doesn’t comment on it, and they eat their bagels messily over themselves.

“Sorry, it's a mess in here,” Dan says as they sip on their coffees. “I’ve been meaning to clear it all up it’s just…”

Phil nods in understanding. He brings his own coffee to his lips and slurps it down.

“It’s okay. I don’t see any rats just yet,” he jokes.

Dan does a half laugh back at him.

He’s chewing on his food when his brain seems to catch up on him.

“Phil,” he says in a small voice. Phil looks up at him. There’s a crumb on his lip that he doesn’t seem to notice. Dan stares at it hard, like he might be able to move it with his mind.

“What are we doing?” He eventually asks.

There’s the sound of traffic below them from the living room window, muffled and distant. Something Dan is used to these days. Phil swallows even though he has no food in his mouth. He takes a breath and the crumb seems to just… fall. Discarded and uncaring, like Phil hadn’t cared at all.

Phil gives an awkward laugh and a shrug of his shoulders. “I dunno. Eating bagels?”

Dan knows what he’s doing: he’s doing the thing he always does when he gets uncomfortable. He’s making up space with a half joke. Dan remembers how many times Phil would resort to it when things became unsure.

When Dan was told he’d need medication for his wonky brain chemicals, or that he’d be going off for therapy once a week, Phil had panicked slightly, and turned up his personality just to make up for the lack he thought would be there with this new Dan he’d have to deal with.

Of course, in the end he was okay. Phil was okay, Dan was okay and right now he could cry and the thought of them both being okay.

Dan can’t remember the last time they were okay.

“Why are you here, Phil?” Dan asks after some time. He’s chewed his thoughts and presented them to him. Raw. 

Phil’s shoulders seem to slump and it makes Dan wonder how he hadn’t noticed how tense he really was until now.

“Dan.” Is all he says.

Dan waits for him to say something, anything, but he doesn’t. His words empty and silent and the flat feels too small and too tight for them to exist in here.

He wants to run away. But Phil’s sat on his couch looking sad and Dan knows right now he can’t just escape this feeling and this moment.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

He watches Phil. Watches his face look surprised for a split second as the words leave his mouth, and then as if all at once, his face crumples and he’s letting out a choked sob.

It sounds pained and hurt and so fucking awful.

Phil cries into his soggy, sad bagel and Dan simply watches.

He’s seen Phil cry plenty of times. He remembers seeing him cry back in Manchester for the first time, feeling that helpless feeling he has now. It’s like a rock in the bottom of his stomach.

He shuffles forward and places an awkward hand on his knee.

Phil’s tears eventually ceases and he looks up at Dan with big wet eyes.

Dan’s stomach twists as he remembers the last time he’d seen Phil cry like this. Back when they were both clad in black suits and everything fell around them as they spend the day greeting people and thanking them for coming to her funeral.

“Sorry,” Phil sniffs, wiping his nose on his sleeve. He gives a little shake of his head and look down to avoid looking at Dan.

“Sorry, I—“

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

Phil blinks, eyelashes wet and dark now.

“You’re… you’re allowed to cry, Phil.”

Dan watches him. Watches his face change like his head is figuring out the words.

“I’ve cried so much,” is what he eventually says.

Dan gives a little huff. “Me too, mate.”

Phil gives another sniff, like he might cry again. “I’m really sick of crying.”

Dan’s hand doesn’t move from his knee. “You’re good at pretending that you haven’t been.”

It’s not a lie. Dan knows Phil like the back of his hand; knows him as well as the patterned veins under his skin. He gets Phil on a whole other level that some people don’t see.

He also knows how good Phil is at pretending he’s fine. He’s watched Phil push through meetings only to collapse when they got home and finish off the panic attack that was knotted up inside him the entire time.

He’s seen Phil fall apart all whilst keeping himself together.

It’s frightening.

“I have a therapist,” Phil tells him. It doesn’t sound as defensive as it could sound, Dan thinks. But he simply nods.

“I know.”

Phil looks at him, like properly looks at him.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there all the time,” Phil starts but Dan cuts him off with a heavy sigh.

“No,” he shakes his head at him. His eyes are starting to burn with tears. “You don’t get to do that.”

Phil swallows thickly and his eyes go glossy. “Yeah I do get to do that, Dan,” he says, his voice a little clipped. “I pushed a lot of people away and I isolated myself because of it.”

Dan shifts on his seat. “I get that,” he says quietly.

Phil looks at him before letting out a strangled laugh. His eyes dart around as they begin to get wetter and wetter and his chest gives a heavy heave.

He eventually looks back at Dan.

“I don’t even have friends at work. I don’t talk to anyone about it and I just carry on my life like it never even happened.”

He takes a long, shuddery breath.

“It’s like I live my life pretending she never even existed, Dan. How could I ever do that to her?”

His voice cracks and breaks and more tears slip down his face.

How many times had Dan brushed away similar tears? How many times had he kissed the places they’d fallen?

Now he couldn’t do either of those things. He couldn’t touch at his face with his fingers or his lips and instead he can only watch and squeeze at his knee.

“I thought you were the one that had it all together,” Dan says after sometime.

Phil looks at him, face now unreadable.

“I felt like for the longest time I was the only one going through this shit still,” he sniffs. “I thought you and everyone else had it all figured out.”

Phil gives a sharp laugh that has Dan looking at him.

“God no,” he laughs again. “No.”

Dan gives a small nod as he processes it all.

Grief is a marathon, he reminds himself. Phil never had it better or worse than him. He wasn’t really ahead of him in any way. They were all running towards one big goal, so of course it makes sense that Phil’s been doing his own silent suffering.

“You’re working,” Dan says.

Phil nods. “I am. The BBC gave me a contract and I work there now. It’s good to be back but… not the same really.”

Dan hums. He knew through Bryony that Phil had been back at the BBC but he’d never once tuned in and listened to him.

“I hate it there though sometimes,” Phil adds in a quiet voice, almost afraid to be heard.

“They push me to be this… bubbly, happy go lucky guy still like I was all that time ago.”

It must be tough, Dan thinks, to make yourself work even when your brain doesn’t want you to. 

Dan’s lucky that he has the ad revenues and merch sales that pay his rent. But it’s not always enough, scraping at the bottom of the barrel every month, living a far away life he once knew so well.

“The other month they had me do a segment on Back to School stories. School stories, Dan. I think they’re trying to ease me back into this kind of thing and me not saying anything is letting them do that.”

Dan sucks a breath through his teeth.

“But you want to say something,” Dan asks. “Right?”

Phil sighs again as he settles back in his seat. He was never any good at sitting still whilst his head was so frantic.

They were similar in that sense, Dan remembers. And in a way he’s glad he hasn’t seemed to change all that much.

“Right,” Phil eventually says and Dan momentarily forgets what he even said before Phil starts talking again.

“I’ve always had that bubbly bouncy personality to present to people, you know that,” he says with a wave of his hand. “It’s always been that way.”

Dan hums. “I remember how annoying it was sometimes. Like you weren’t allowed to be human.”

Phil’s face falls. “Exactly.”

Dan moves his hand away from Phil’s knee.

“Do you talk to your therapist?” He asks carefully.

Phil cracks a smile and gives a half hearted laugh. “About what?”

“All of it,” he says simply. “About the accident, about work, about pretending to be okay because you feel like that’s what you should be doing.”

Phil blinks at him. “Sounds like you  _ are _ my therapist right now,” he chuckles weakly.

Dan can only offer him a thin smile. “I don’t mean to intrude,” he says honestly with a shake of his head. “I just…” he takes a breath.

“It’s hard. Isn’t it?”

Phil nods and suddenly there’s tears again in his eyes.

“When you have nobody to talk to, yeah, it is.”

Dan feels his gut twist inside his body. He understands what Phil’s going through. They went through it all together, and now they had the chance to talk about it for the first time in a year.

“Why did we drift apart?” Phil asks suddenly. Dan looks up at him and the tears are no more.

His face is calm. Relaxed, even.

“Huh?” Dan says, because that’s the only thing his brain supplies for him right now, and hearing Phil repeat the question might give him time to think about what he needs to say.

“Us, Phil says. “Where did it go wrong?”

Dan breathes in through his nose. “A lot of things,” he eventually decides to say.

Phil sighs. It sounds defeated, almost like he’s holding himself back from what he really wants to say.

“I know,” he says before quickly adding: 

“But was it me?”

Dan’s breath catches in his throat, and he looks hard at Phil.

“Phil.”

“Dan.”

“Our daughter died. Our lives were fucking ruined, I wasn’t coping, my life changed so much— of course it wasn’t  _ you.” _

He doesn’t realise he’s crying until he feels the dampness reach his chin. He doesn’t even bother to wipe away the tears.

Phil’s crying too now. Again.

“I thought for so long…” Phil starts but doesn’t finish. Dan feels a bubble of frustration bubble up inside him but he calms it.

“Thought what?” He asks.

Phil wipes away a tear. 

“I thought I hadn’t done enough for you. For us. For our relationship. I thought I could have done more but I hadn’t.”

Dan frowns. “Why would you think that?”

Phil buries his head in his hands and lets out a long, wobbly breath.

“I blamed myself for such a long time, Dan. I blamed me.”

Dan’s heart stutters in his chest. “You can’t do that.”

Phil looks up at Dan with lightning speed.

“But I did. I did blame myself. I blamed myself for letting you go when we should have stuck together. I blame myself for pushing myself into a job that I was too hurt to carry on with.”

He looks deep into Dan’s eyes like he’s reaching into his soul or something.

“I blamed myself for what happened that day.”

Dan shakes his head. “It’s not your fault,” he lets out a tiny sob. “It’s not your fault and it never was.”

Phil’s face crumpled. “It was, Dan. I was there. I could have stopped it. I ruined my life, your life, Cleo’s life—“

Dan cuts him off with a quick grab of his hand.

“Stop. Just, fucking stop.”

Phil does stop.

Dan swallows thickly despite the lump that feels like a damn  _ brick _ in his throat.

“It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault, not even Cleo’s.”

Phil gives a little stuttering hiccup at her name.

“I’m sorry,” Phil whispers, wiping away the tears from his face. His cheeks are red and blotchy; the evidence of his tears plainly there still.

A silence falls over them both.

“Have you been going to therapy?” Dan asks after some time. Phil’s head whips upwards to look at him, eyes wide like he’s some startled animal.

“Yeah,” he says. Then. “Not all the time though. Work is so busy all the time, it’s way I wanted to go to group with Bryony because it felt… easier,” he says, eyes flicker over Dan’s face and Dan wonders how something so beautiful can look so dull at the same time. 

  
“I guess it felt easier to fade into the background of things. At therapy, at work. With you.”   
  
Dan stares at him for a long time. Then, he says:

“Everything felt like a bomb going off.”

  
Phil swallows. “Yeah?”   
  
Dan nods and looks down to avoid Phil’s face. “I felt like it exploded right there. Right in that fucking stupid kitchen where she died. It felt like I carried the shrapnel of it all with me. Still feels like I do.”   
  
He looks back up to watch Phil’s helpless face crumple. “Dan…”   
  
“And I still do,” Dan adds, giving a laugh that turns into more tears. “Look at me. I’m a fucking mess.”   
  
Phil blinks and tears roll down his already red cheeks. “We both are, I think.”   
  
Dan rests his head in his hands. He takes a few steady breaths and he feels his palms grow wet against his eyes. Somedays it’s hard to cry; other’s it’s hard to stop.   
  
He eventually looks back up at Phil, who has a distant look etched across his face. When did he look so much more older? Does Dan look the same? Had he never really noticed the lines across his face until now?   
  
Did grief do this too? Did it rip away their years like a rug beneath their feet? How did he never really see it until today?   
  
“Do you wonder what she’d be doing now?” Dan asks, feeling the world tumble out of his mouth before he has a chance to stop them.   
  
Phil looks at him and Dan’s unsure of what his expression holds. If he snaps at Dan, he’d take it. He’d rather Phil scream at him than the silent stares he’s so used to.   
  
“Yeah,” Phil croaks. “I do.”   
  
Dan hums, wiping away a stray tear. He’s sick of crying. Sick of feeling this way.   
  
“Do you think it ever gets better?” He then asks. “Like, really? Does it ever stop hurting like this?”   
  
Phil sucks in a shaky breath and lets it out slowly. Dan doesn’t take his eyes off him once.   
  
“I don’t know,” Phil finally says.   
  
Dan nods slowly.   
  
“I hope it does.”   
  
“Yeah,” Phil says. “Me too.”   
  
Dan looks at him and manages a small smile. “Thanks for the bagel, Phil.”   
  
Phil somehow manages a smile back. “It’s not a problem.”

  
Dan has the urge to reach out and touch his hand.    
  
He gives into the urge and wraps his hand around Phil’s. He doesn’t pull away or make a face, but he relaxes a little, like everything he’d been holding on his shoulders had eased off a little.   
  
They say nothing, not until Phil eventually leaves a while later.   
  
Dan grabs their paper bags and puts them in his overflowing bin. Phil watches him from where he’s stood in the doorway waiting to leave.   
  
“You should really clean that mess up,” Phil tells him and smiles.   
  
Dan looks at his bin and then back to Phil.   
  
“Yeah,” he nods. “I will.”   
  
Phil gulps. “I could help you. If you want.”   
  
Dan stands there in the midst of his mess, and for once, it doesn’t feel as suffocating.   
  
“Okay,” he nods. “You could help.”   
  
Phil smiles, eyes soft and face warm. He looks okay again.   
  
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll help.”   
  
And with that, he’s gone. And when the front door closes, Dan looks into his bin and sees the two coffee cups that are poking out the top. He huffs and takes the entire bin bag out. He’ll take it to the garbage room later today once he’s showered and dressed.   
  
He even ties it into a knot so it wont spill.   
  
It’s not a lot, but it’s something at least.   
And it’s good enough for him.   
  



	12. Chapter 12

_ When Dan arrives at the house, the sun has already gone down. Darkness falls earlier over the sky now as winter starts to creep up on them, and Dan always finds himself in love with the way the world changes like that. Watching the world become a velvety blue earlier than usual gives him peace. _

_ But as the cab rolls to a stop outside his door, it’s not the only blue he sees. _

_ It’s flashing— bright and neon and when he sees the police car parked up on his driveway next to their car, his stomach falls right out of him. _

_ He’s shakily handing over the change to the driver; uncaring if he’s given too much. All he wants is out, and he pops the door open and stumbles out on weak, shaky legs. _

_ The evening air hits him and it’s cold. Everything is so deadly quiet and it’s enough to make his stomach lurch. _

_ A million thoughts pulse painfully inside his skull, each one thumps against his brain as he takes each dreadful step towards his door. _

_ It’s not even locked, and he pushes it open with a deep breath. _

_ He’s greeted by a startled looking police officer. _

_ “Wha—“ Dan starts, and his eyes dart around what he can see of his living room. There’s nothing different here. The tv is on the wall, the PlayStation controllers are left of the coffee table from last night and what looks like a half drunk mug of coffee sits beside a little plastic beaker of juice. _

_ Dan’s eyes dart around towards the officer again. _

_ He’s giving him a sympathetic look that Dan instantly wants to tear straight off his face. _

_ He tries to speak again but it’s like his tongue stops working. The guy must get it. He must understand. _

_ He doesn’t wait for Dan to say anything more, and instead says: _

_ “Mr Howell?” _

_ Dan is barely able to give him a nod, but the office simply rests his weight on his hips and tucks his hands into his belt when he says _

_ “There’s been an accident.” _

_ * _

Nana hands him a cup of tea and he takes it and lets it warm his hands.

“You’re lucky I was able to find anything clean in that bloody kitchen of yours,” she says with an awkward laugh, sitting down beside him on the sofa.

Phil had just been sat where she was now sitting, only just a few days ago.   
  
He hears his nana clear her throat and when he looks at her is when he realises he must have not been listening to what she had been saying whatsoever.   
  
“Sorry,” Dan says with a quick shake of his head before taking a large sip of his tea. It scolds his mouth.

He looks at her just as she’s flickering her eyes at him. He knows that look; she’s thinking of something and Dan knows there’s no stopping her as soon as she gets going on whatever idea it is.

He grips his mug tightly in anticipation as to what she’s about to say.

She doesn’t say anything at first, and Dan watches her put her cup down with a clink before looking back at him with a mischievous look about her. 

He dreads that look.

“Finish your tea,” she tells him. “Then, you’re coming to make cakes with me.”

Dan gulps. “What?” He says dumbly, but nana just chuckles softly like she always does and shakes her head at him.

“I said: finish your tea and make cakes with me.”

Dan doesn’t argue the point. He knows if he tries he wouldn’t even get close to winning.

He takes another large sip of his tea and watches her from over his mug as she smiles at him.

*

They get the train back to her house. She’d moved away from Reading a while back when his grandad had passed away a few years ago. Nana had said the house had felt too empty and big and Dan knows exactly how she’d felt.   
  
The house was smaller and closer to London yet still being between him and his mum - right in the middle so she could travel back and forth easily when they needed her.   
  
Dan felt like he never stopped needing his nana, no matter how old they both got, she was his rock in so many moments of his life, even when they didn’t realise it.   
  
When Dan walks through the threshold it still feels familiar; these hallways aren’t the same ones he ran through as a boy and the smell isn’t the same but at least nana still is.   
  
She walks straight through to the kitchen - it’s small and cute and it seems like the perfect kitchen for a grandmother.   
  
Before Dan can ask what they’re doing she’s already pulling things from the cupboards and Dan stands there dumbly watching her.   
  
She’s grabbing a mixing bowl from a shelf when she turns to Dan and smiles sweetly, the same smile he’s known his entire life.   
  
“Grab the sultanas from the fridge, love. We’re making rock cakes.”   
  
Dan just nods and swings her fridge open. It’s neat and it looks organised here unlike what he’s used to in his own kitchen. He grabs the little packet of raisins from their shelf and hands them to his nana.   
  
She already has everything set out with a large, side smile on her face. She looks excited and it makes Dan’s stomach twist up inside him. Is he a bad enough grandson that even making cakes with his nana is enough to make him want to curl up and whinge about wanting to do nothing.

“How do we do this?” He’s asking her as he watches her move around with such ease and practice.

“We add the butter and the flour,” she tells him as she pours each needed ingredient into the bowl.

“With a spoon?” He says, watching her like she’s working actual magic.

She looks up at him with a grin.

“No,” she says with a shake of her head. “Use your hands, lad.”

Dan swallows thickly as he reaches into the bowl and starts to mix the ingredients between his hands. He looks at his nana for reassurance and she smiles at him.

“That’s it,” she nods. “That’s perfect.”

*

There’s mess everywhere.

Dan’s hands are completely covered in cake mixture, sticky and unforgiving as he runs his hands under the running water of the tap with a grimace as wet flour sticks underneath his fingernails.

His nana is chuckling as she shoves the cakes into the oven where they’ll soon be ready.

“Why did I agree to this,” Dad tuts as he pours a generous amount of soap into his palm.

His nana makes him jump slightly as she pats his shoulder.

“Oh, stop your moaning,” she says, handing him a tea towel for him to dry his hands once he’s done. “You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

Dan turns the running water off and turns around to face her.

He smiles.

“I did,” he says quietly. “Thank you.”

She reaches up and gives his cheek a little pinch, like she used to do when he was little. “Good. Let's just hope they taste as good as they looked going in, hm?”

Dan gives a breathy laugh. “Yeah, okay.”

*

They’re sat in the living room sipping on tea waiting for the rock cakes to finally cool down enough so they can eat them.

Dan’s staring at a photo that’s on the mantelpiece. 

It’s of Cleo and his grandparents a few years back.

It’s strange to think that only his nana is alive now, the other two people in the photo are gone now.

His stomach clenches and he looks at his nana who’s staring at him with a soft look.

“I miss them,” she says gently and Dan’s heart does a funny kind of flip.

“Yeah,” Dan says flatly as he looks into his tea, wishing he could shrink down and hide in there. “Me too.”

He looks up and nana is still looking at him.

She looks…  _ sad  _ almost. His nana never looks sad. Not when he’s around at least.

“I know you’re not one for religion,” she says, a croak in her voice. “And I understand that, but it gives me peace to know your popsie is up there, wherever  _ there _ is, with her, making sure she’s safe and well.”

Dan has to grit his teeth. He feels like he’s always grinning and bearing it. He  _ doesn’t  _ believe in God, and his nana of all people knows that as well as why. But he supposes if it gives her some sort of relief, what kind of cruel bastard would he be to take it away from her.   
  
Instead, he relaxes his jaw and manages a small smile.    
  
“Yeah?” he croaks and she smiles. It makes him feel a bit less shit at least.   
  
“I think so,” she sighs, looking back at the photo. Dan can only look for so long until his eyes begin to burn with tears.   
  
“She’d be running around with old Bangy,” she chuckles. It makes Dan laugh too.   
  
She loved dogs. They never found the time to get one, instead wanting to wait until she was a little older to really enjoy looking after one… so she would be old enough to love it when it died.   
  
Little did he know that any kind of metaphorical dog would have outlived his daughter.   
  
He’s being ripped from his thoughts when he hears the gentle sound of his nana clearing her throat.   
  
He looks up at her, she’s standing now, and from where she is, he can just about make out the glossy look in her eyes.   
  
Grief is a marathon, he reminds himself. Not a race.   
  
“Daniel, darling, help me with the cakes, will you?” She asks, her voice so thin, barely above a whisper.   
  
Dan blinks back his own tears, smiles something stretched out and painful and stands.   
  
“Sure, nana,” he tells her as he follows her to the kitchen. “Then can we eat?”   
  
She chuckles softly. “Of course my dear.”   
  
*   
  
_ There’s a scream bubbling up in his throat, but it gets trapped as his body restricts, his whole body seems to fold up on himself. His lungs are starved and hungry, the inside of his skull thuds and his brain seems to swell and bruise with each breathing moment. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ His face feels raw, like the skin had been stripped from his cheeks from how many tears he’d shed. He can hear the sound of people around him, but he doesn’t register it. He doesn’t pay attention to it. All he can hear is the stifled sounds of Phil crying beside him. He doesn’t reach out for him. He doesn’t lend him a hand, mainly because his entire being feels like nothing more than soggy paper, and one faulty move he’ll collapse and crumple to the floor with no chance of ever getting back up. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He hears the rushed sounds of feet, heels clicking against the floor so loud it echoes, even in such a busy room. There’s a sharp gasp, something painful and gut wrenching, and when he hears the first strangled cry, he looks up. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ His own mother stands in front of him. Her face crumples, the kind of expression he’s sure a mother never really makes. The kind of expression he’s making himself right now, he’s sure. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ She cries, wailing, tears burst from her like a tap, and Dan finds himself throwing himself at her, holding her close as she cries her tears and snot into his shirt. He buries his head in her neck, wanting to curl up there like a child once again. He wants his mummy, he wants her to take away the bad things just like how it would be when he’d wake up in the night scared and alone. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ But she hiccups an awful kind of sound. Dan opens his eyes to see Phil standing there, looking at him. Eyes red and puffy, face as raw as his own feels, hair plastered to his face. He opens his mouth and makes a horrid kind of sound. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He sounds so broken, Dan wonders if that feeling will ever, ever leave, no matter what happens today. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Dan sobs again, Karen holds him tighter, her body trembles. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Dan,” Phil croaks. “Dan.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He only holds his mother a little closer. He looks at Phil for a moment, his arms empty and face wobbling with a new kind of uncertainty. Dan sucks in a breath as new tears slip down his face. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He closes his eyes and cries into his mother’s shoulder for a little while longer. _ _   
_ _   
_ * _   
_ _   
_ His nana’s rock cakes are always good. They’re made with love; that’s what she’d always tell him when he was a kid, sending him on his way with one at a time and a pinch of the cheek.   
  
He bites into it and crumbs fly about everywhere. He doesn’t mind it, brushing them off his shirt letting them fall onto the floor of the train as it rumbles beneath his feet, heading back to London where the sun is already starting to set again. 

He bites into his cake once again, letting crumbs cascade down his front like a biscuit avalanche. He flicks a tiny crumb from his jeans, watching it fly through the air until landing on a discarded newspaper on the seat opposite, and he laughs.   
  
He laughs, mouth full and stuffed, he laughs until he almost chokes and there’s tears forming in the corners on his eyes and his belly aches. He swallows the mouthful of his nana’s cake and he lets tears slip down his face once again like they already know their way.   
  
His nana had always been smart and clever, he knew, but she was fucking sly and cunning as well.   
  
She hadn’t just invited him over to bake cakes and feel sad together. He looks down at his crumbling cake that now sits in his palm. No, she’d done it to teach him a lesson.   
  
Making rock cakes was a messy job. He’d gotten his hands dirty, scrubbing under the nails until they were clean. But even after all of that; washing bowl after bowl after bowl. The cakes were still a crumbling mess.   
  
The cake was Dan. Dan was a mess. There was mess before, there was mess before. But it still could be something good.   
  
He looks down at the cake in his hand and he lets out another loud, manic laugh. A woman a few seats down looks up from her book to give him a disgusted look, but Dan doesn’t care that he looks totally and utterly crazy.   
  
He shoves the rest of his treat into his mouth and laughs again, letting crumbs splutter from his face, the lady looking at him turns around with a scoff.   
  
He doesn’t care. He’s as messy as the cake, but it doesn’t mean it’s all bad. The cake was delicious. Maybe life could be too, someday. Maybe he could form something out of it like a dozen broken eggs.   
  
He laughs until he coughs, swallowing thickly and tipping his head back against his train seat. His eyes flicker to the window where the world passes him in a hazy blur.   
  
It passes him by in a watercolour of mudded vision. He blinks, squeezing out the last remaining tears, his tongue darting out to catch it, the saltiness bursts in his mouth. He sucks in a breath and keeps his eyes closed, letting the train rock him, crumbs still sat in his lap until he’s bothered to brush them away.   
  
Maybe he likes the mess, he thinks to himself. Maybe it’s so integrated within him now, he’s forgotten to be anyone else.    
  
His chest goes tight and he opens his eyes, afraid of that all too familiar drowning feeling.   
  
He thinks about Cleo, for the first time in a long time. It’s not just Cleo, the Cleo with a haze of death around her. He thinks about his daughter, the daughter he lost and the daughter he loved - still does love.   
  
His breath shudders as the images of her begin to swim around in his vision behind closed eyes. Her smile, her laugh, the way her hair bounced when she ran.   
  
He tries to remember the weight of her in his arms. It’s a fading memory now, but he clings with one last attempt. It may soon completely break away, much like a rock cake. But for now, he’ll keep trying to remember. He’ll always keep trying.

*   
  
When he gets back to London, his flat is empty and cold and stale, just like it usually always is. He takes a deep breath. He has a tub in his backpack, full of more cakes his nana had sent him home with. It’s the only thing stopping him from flinging his back to the floor and crawling back to bed where he’ll cry his sorrows into his pillow with the fear that he can no longer remember what his child’s hair smelt like after a bath.   
  
Instead, he takes the box and goes to the kitchen. It’s still a mess. It’s a dirty fucking mess, a perfect representation for himself, he supposes. He has no real space for the cakes; they sit in a clean, white tub like they’re some beacon of hope.   
  
He looks at them. Maybe they are.   
  
He ends up making space for them, clearing a place for them.   
  
He looks at it, where it sits, a mess parted in its wake. He blinks once, twice, and then he tells himself to stop being a baby.   
  
He grabs his phone, fingers tremble and his heart races as he opens up his texts.   
  
He feels like he could be sick once it’s sent, but he wills himself to stay okay. He has to be. For himself.   
  
For Cleo.   
  
He looks at the text once more. He looks at it again, hours later after abandoning his phone in favour to go sit on his shower floor, letting the spray run cold.   
  
He feels a tug at his heart when he returns, seeing the screen already lit up. Another beacon of hope.   
  
There, at the top is his own text that reads:   
  
_ hey. wanna take up that offer of helping me with my kitchen tomorrow? let me know if ur free  _

His stomach twists when he reads the response underneath.

_ Of course. Will be over tomorrow :) Take care, Dan  _

He keeps reading it over and over again, eyes skimming past Phil’s name and it almost feels like maybe if he stops, he’ll start hurting again.

He holds his phone close to his beating heart, waiting for tomorrow. 


	13. Chapter 13

_ Karen is still sobbing into the palms of her hands, head bowed and shoulders shaking. Phil is even looking at her, instead he’s holding his phone so hard the sides dent his own hands, his eyes drift someplace else. Not here though, Dan thinks. He’s not here right now. Dan can’t even feel his own hands, It’s like his entire body is floating away, limb from limb the longer he sits here in the waiting room, feeling each second tick on like it’s drowning him like tar. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He wants to cry, hold his hand out for his mummy to scoop him up and rub his back until it’s all better. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ But she’s crying, shaking, trembling as she folds in on herself, collapsing like it’s the final fall. She doesn’t hold him, she doesn’t comfort him. They sit and wait together. Phil holds his phone tighter. Karen hiccups and Dan just sits and listens. She doesn’t comfort him. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Nobody does. _

*   
  
Dan lays, spread eagle on his bed, letting his chest rise and fall with each tiny little breath he takes. His heart no longer races against his chest like a racehorse, thundering against each rib like it has the intent to snap and break each one. He looks up at the same familiar ceiling and wills himself to take a deep breath. He lets the stale air from his bedroom fill his lungs and lets them exhale then, burning as it passes his lips like it’s hot and ashy.   
  
It’s not though. It’s just air, and yet, it still fucking hurts to breathe. It’s like each time his lungs open again, he’s reminded that he gets to breathe and live, and he thinks about how unfair it is, as he sits here, drinking it and wasting it away, whilst his child never really got to experience how incredible air was.   
  
She never had the opportunity to appreciate the act of breathing, not until she took her last stuttered gasp.   
  
His heart clenches, and he squeezes his eyes shut, but her image bursts behind her eyelids, almost taunting himself.   
  
He’s not good at much, he thinks, but he’s bloody brilliant at torturing himself.   
  
Phil will be over soon, and he’s still yet to peel himself from unwashed bed sheets. He still needs to scrub at his mouth to rid the unsanitary taste that lingers there. But he can’t find himself to care.   
  
He needs to care today - he needs to try. Because Phil will be over soon, and Phil’s supposed to help him clear up because he’s made a fucking mess and after nearly a year he’s only now realising that sometimes it’s easier to fix when you’re not alone.   
  
His body feels bruised by the torment he puts himself through. He feels like maybe there’s another Dan, the other happier, better Dan. Trapped inside, clawing its way out. He pushes it down because as much as he misses that version of himself, he can’t be that person.   
  
He’s not a dad anymore, not a husband, at least, in the same way he was before.   
  
He still has his child, just not with him. He still is married, only a certificate and a wedding ring lost somewhere to prove that.   
  
He can’t be the same Dan as before, he knows that. He just has to mould himself into something better than what he is now.   
  
Trauma has smashed him down, like wet clay. He can only try and rebuild whatever he was before, a little wonky and uneven and not quite the same. He can only try.   
  
The door knocks and Dan considers for a moment to just let it go. He thinks about Phil on the other side, maybe just as scared and as unsure as he is.   
  
But Phil didn’t lay in bed until the middle of the day; Phil didn’t invite him over just to ignore him because Phil hurts too.   
  
Phil hurts just as bad as he does, cut by the same blade, bleeding the same blood. Phil hurts and Dan hurts and it’s only fair they learn how to hurt together.   
  
He gets up and grabs the door. Phil looks hurt. He’s not a knight in shining armour like he used to look like, years ago when Dan was lugging around a different kind of trauma.   
  
That Phil’s gone too. They’re both gone, and this is the shell of them both. Wet clay.

_ “ _ Hey,” Phil speaks first. His voice is hoarse, like maybe he’d had a cry on the way here.   
  
Dan doesn’t blame him. Crying hurts, but it hurts in a good way sometimes.   
  
“Hey,” he whispers back.   
  
*

Phil is quick to start work in the kitchen, skipping the small talk between them. Dan doesn’t offer him a drink, not yet when there’s no clean mugs to even drink out. And besides, Phil’s already bought him a drink, wrapped up in the familiar Starbucks logo, warm to the touch and sweet on his lips when he takes a sip, thanking him.   
  
He still hasn’t brushed his teeth, or showered and he’s sure that his face is a sweaty, greasy mess and he probably stinks a little bit. But in front of Phil, he doesn’t care. He just rips off a bin liner off the roll and sighs as he looks at him.   
  
“Better get to work then, eh?”   
  
*   
  
They do a deep clean. It’s more than Dan did the other week with his nana, before they’d only barely scratching the surface of this room - of this mess.   
  
Phil pulls everything from the cupboards, being uncaring and not wasting any time in sorting out what needs to be chucked, and what he might want to keep.

They move around each other in perfect sync. He doesn’t realise it at first until Phil does a spin around him when they cross each other in the middle. They both laugh and get back to work.   
  
A fter all this time of feeling like he’d been stuck in thick mud, all alone whilst everyone else was up ahead on him, for the first time, he doesn’t feel so alone. They can still move together; they can still work together in an almost perfect harmony. Like muscle memory, a reflex Dan thought had long gone been forgotten still works like all it needed was time.   
  
Phil scrubs at the sides, the tiles, literally everything. Dan even makes a shocked noise when he notices that the sink is actually glowing for the first time ever.   
  
The fridge is the biggest obstacle; it’s barren, no food stacked up, nothing like he used to have. There’s no almond milk tucked away in the door, no singing pig to make him smile when he opens it. But it stinks, and each shelf is layered with a thin line of grime from the last year of neglect.   
  
Dan gets a good workout over it whilst Phil sorts through plates and pans, putting them away in a new place that seems more appropriate.   
  
The small collection of mugs he has goes above the sink. Dan happily listens to the sound of Phil moving around, china clinks together, the tap goes on and off again.   
  
It’s the sound of living, he thinks to himself. It’s the sound of someone else breathing and being alive in his apartment, and not just the same sounds of his own ragged breaths again.   
  
He’s not listening to just the sound of his own sobs claw out of his throat, or his own stomach growl when he’s too lazy to get up and find food.   
  
Phil must bump himself because there's a soft crash and then an even softer:   
  
“Ow. Fuck.”

Dan doesn’t turn away from where his head is stuck in the fridge, nor does he ask if he’s alright. He just smiles to himself because it feels alright.   
  
He smiles. He feels afloat. Like he’s finally getting himself out of what’s been pulling him down for so long. Like he’s treading water. He smiles again. He likes that. Treading water.   
  
*   
_   
_ _ Time is drowning him. He’s in the thick of it, up to his neck where he stretches and reaches for air. His body gets all tight and he’s kicking and kicking but nothing works. His legs are pulled and his arms are held down. He tries to scream, but time catches up to him and it chokes him. It floods his mouth like thick, sticky tar and he tries to scream again but it comes out in nothing more than a sick gurgle. Tears prick at his eyes he heaves.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Time lets him go, no longer suspended and he’s falling. He feels a hand brush against his arm, maybe an attempt to catch him, but it’s too slow, and he’s crashing. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The floor is hard beneath his knees and it hurts. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ But the scream that eventually is ripped from him only hurts more. His whole body is taken away in one breath, like he’s exhaled every ounce of energy he has within him. His scream doesn’t seem to end, not until he tries to breathe again, and he can’t. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The scream eventually leaves him, in a wisp of agony, it’s gone; nothing more than an echo in his ears, bouncing around the long, bleak halls. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He makes an awful sound, a gag, a wail. He tries to stand, but he can’t. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He bows his head, looking at the floor beneath him. He can see the doctors shoes, right in front of him and his words rebound inside his head like the worst record he’s ever listened to: _

_ “We did everything we could,” he’d told him. “But I’m afraid we were unable to save her.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ His body fucking hurts. His heart feels like a rock, and he screams again. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ His head is heavy on his shoulders, and when he looks up, finally, through tears, he notices where Phil is standing. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He’s standing tall, unmoving. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t collapse to the floor. He doesn’t even fucking flinch. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He blinks, and Dan watches the single tear roll down his face. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Their daughter is dead. And he’s only shed a single tear whilst Dan is on the fucking floor, feeling like his insides are being torn from inside his skin. He looks at Phil, he makes an awful groaning sound, like some kind of wounded animal, still curled up by the doctor's feet. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ For a moment, he’s not sure if Phil even knows where he is, or if maybe he’ll soon burst too. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ But instead, he takes a sharp breath. He looks at Dan. Another single tear. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He opens his mouth, a croak escapes him. It feels like a fraction of what Dan feels right now. He feels so fucking angry. He feels so fucking hurt, he just wants to scream again. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He does. It’s less intense. More sad this time. It catches into a sob, his body heaves and shakes and can’t. He can’t get up, he can’t move. He’s stuck on the floor, sinking lower and lower and lower. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Until then. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Until a gentle hand is on his arm, guiding him upwards. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Dan lets himself be pulled up, legs wobbling. He thinks maybe he’s died. Heartbreak. He can die of heartbreak.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ But he looks, and it’s Phil. His face is unreadable. It’s void, blank, straight. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ HIs eyes are swimming with tears, skin pale. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ There’s blood on his shirt still. He can’t stop staring until Phil opens his mouth again, and this time, he speaks. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “It’s okay.” _ _   
_ _   
_ *

Phil is sat on his couch. His sleeves are rolled up. A bead of sweat is rolling down his forehead. Dan passes him a glass of water, his sniffs and takes it, gulping it back.   
  
“Thirsty work,” Dan comments, ignoring how wobbly and awkward his voice sounds as he sits beside him.   
  
Phil pulls the glass away and sighs breathily.    
  
“Your kitchen is worse than I thought,” he tells him. His voice is a little flat, maybe a little clipped, and anxiety begins to boil deep within him, the same spark burns.    
  
Dan looks down at his hands. His stupidly big hands. There’s dirt under his nail; a line of mud brown beneath his thumb.    
  
His picks at it before looking back at Phil.   
  
“I found it hard to look after this place,” he tells him in a thin voice. “When I left.”   
  
Phil swallows, his throat bobs. 

“Why’d you leave then?”   
  
Dan’s confronted with the bluntness of that question. It hurts, jabbing him like a hot iron, backed up into some corner like he’s cattle, scared and wanting to kick out.   
  
But it’s not. It hurts because he knows he has no real answer.   
  
He opens his mouth, no words come to him at first.   
  
“I was scared,” he says after a beat. “Scared you were gonna leave me anyway.”   
  
Phil makes a weak attempt at a laugh. “Damage control.”   
  
He looks at Phil, and Phil looks at him. “Like a bomb, remember?”   
  
Phil nods. “The shrapnel,” he agrees. “This was your shrapnel,” he turns his head to glance back at the room behind him, now clean. Bin bags lean up against the walls, full and brimming.   
  
Dan looks at them, his vision swirls and he looks at Phil again. “Yeah. I put my hurt into this pace. I stopped caring. For this, for me.” He sucks in a sharp breath between his teeth. “For you.”   
  
Phil wipes at his face, and it’s then he notices he’s crying too.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Dan tells him. His gut clenches, like barbed wire, similar to a snake, twisting and constricting inside of him. The more he wants to say, the harder it is. The more painful it becomes.   
  
“We shouldn’t have fought each other,” Phil says quietly. He’s looking down now, away from Dan where he thinks it’s probably easier.   
  
“We never fought,” Dan says softly. “Not really.”   
  
Phil sniffs. Dan watches the way his fingers twist between one another. “We pushed each other away. I let you go.”   
  
Dan’s breath stutters. “I ran away,” he tells him thickly. “I left  _ you _ . I wasn’t yours to chase.”   
  
He looks up to see Phil looking right at him. Tears brim his eyes. “I thought this was what you wanted,” he tells him. “I thought I’d have to just move on with it all. Move on without you.”

It’s Dan’s turn to cry now. Tears in their familiar tracks down his face. The same roads.

“I never wanted this,” he croaks. “I wanted our family. I wanted to be happy, all three of us.”

Phil lets out a choked off sound, ducking his head down, the glass in his hand trembles and the water ripples inside, growing out until they crash into the sides.

“I know,” Phil says weakly. “I wanted that too. And I’m forever sorry it never happened.”

He lifts his head and looks at him, his eyes are dark and heavy and Dan can feel the weight of pain that’s buried beneath them.

He was the one to watch their daughter die; destiny had it that he was the last to be with her.

And Dan wasn’t. And Dan doesn’t believe much in destiny or fate, but forever since that moment that he came home to find his house swarmed by paramedics as well as police, all barking at him to get out of the way where they wheeled her tiny, frail body from the kitchen, he’d felt like the universe had played him in a sick, sick joke. He hadn’t been there for his daughter's last moments.

She’d died maybe as quickly as she’d been born; in an instance.

“I miss her,” he finds himself saying. He sniffs though it does nothing to stop the tears.

Phil lets out a shuddery breath, chest heaving like it might collapse from the weight resting heavy there.

“I know,” he tells him in a quiet voice. “Me too.”

It’s then that Phil takes his hand. It’s cold to the touch and it reminds him of death.

It makes him think about that split second that’s driven them here. He thinks about how each second of his life has changed and twisted to end up like this.

He thinks about that old kitchen. He thinks about the marble floors, picturing this time without the red river, he thinks about his daughter and he thinks about her like maybe it might bring her back, even for a short moment.

He thinks about how in that one instance, she’d reached up, on her tippy toes and all, grabby hands with chipped nail polish in the colour of pink and gold, reaching and reaching… and then it was over.

A crushing weight that had killed her, and now they were two fathers without a child.

One physical weight that had turned into the biggest most impossible mental weight that felt like worse than death itself. A weight that felt heavier than any object. A weight that had already done its damage in his chest where his heart lay.

He squeezes Phil’s hand. They were and still are two fathers grieving their child. Phil squeezes back.

“I’m glad you came,” he whispers, voice so impossibly thin, it’s barely audible. 

But Phil hears him, tears shimmer in his eyes, unblinking. “I’ll always come,” he tells him.

Maybe Dan would invite him to stay, maybe skip the parts necessary and jump to the ending where he knows he’ll reach the tape that tells him he’s crossed the ending and he’s won.

But grief is not a race, he reminds himself. It’s a marathon.

He looks at Phil and smiles. It’s only small, barely even a grin. But it’s there. It’s an understanding.

It’s a passing of the baton. It’s a shared agreement of solidarity. It’s an understanding.

He won’t invite Phil to stay tonight, and probably won’t for the night after that.

He’ll go to therapy and cry and scream some more and hurt no less than he has today. He’ll go to the kebab shop and cry with Bryony, listening to her woes about her troubled love life. He’ll meet for lunch with his mum where they can both pretend to like whatever vegan food they’re forcing themselves. He’ll go to his nana’s house and feel like a burden in her kitchen until she tells him he’s doing a good job at whatever they’re making together.

He’ll let Phil help him, taking out the bin bags as well as scrubbing down a rotten old fridge. 

Because at least now, he has someone to run alongside with.

He’s far from the finishing line; unaware of how long of a stretch he has before his legs can stop and he can crumble to the floor with a mixture of hurt and relief. It’s not in view just yet, and might not be for a while, but he knows now it’s worth it.

Now instead it is no longer a dark, empty vastness of nothingness. He’s not running to the sounds of his own struggles, his own pained cries. He’s no longer running in thick mud, alone in the dark where he can’t breathe.

He can hear the sound of cheering, even if it’s bittersweet. It’s still there. And when Phil’s thumb brushes across his knuckles in the softest of touches, it feels stronger than ever.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading <3
> 
> come say hi on tumblr !! @watergator


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